County Leadership

* Ventura County is not a feudal state. The failure of Supervisors John Flynn, Susan Lacey and Kathy Long to take responsibility for the fiscal fiasco and administrative mess demands their immediate removal.

As they refuse to resign, the citizenry must start recall action now to prevent further degradation of county government.

Their actions in the failed mental health merger also deserve investigation by the grand jury and attorney general.

Flynn and Lacey are the best argument for term limits for supervisors, as more than 20 years in power have evidenced the arrogance that corrupts.

I support The Times’ attention spotlight on these problems and call on a taxpayer group to “pass the petition.”

JOHN W. “JACK” PINARD

Port Hueneme

*

* Re “Baker’s Departure Stuns County Officials,” Nov. 30.

There are plenty of David Bakers around, so get another. Most of them keep their mouths shut and do what they are told anyhow. They take impossible jobs for far too much money and try not to go crazy doing them. Then they move up a rung and crow about how well they did while here. To get along they go along.

We owe Baker a consulting fee for pointing out the real county power structure: a very strong law-and-order lobby. Now I suppose some interim chief administrative officer will perform a study proving or disproving one Baker assertion or another. Then we’ll find a more reasonable CAO to get comfy in the lap of county supervisors, perhaps one who honors the status quo a bit more.

Maybe we should have told Baker who his real bosses would be when he took the job. Must have been a bummer to find out lobbyists run the supervisors. What a way to run a government.

It’s what we deserve when half of us don’t register to vote and half of those who register don’t vote. Look how cost-effective it has become for lobbyists to influence slightly less than 13% of our electorate.

MIKE BARRITT

Simi Valley