Lovely Rita, Meter Maid, Gets $93,000 a Year
Meter maids in Hermosa Beach get anywhere from $67,000 to $93,000 a year.
I grew up next door to Hermosa Beach. My girlfriend lived in Hermosa Beach. My parents bought a home in Manhattan Beach for $8,000. Today, that same 900 square foot home would sell for a million dollars. It was three blocks from the sand. (The tiny lot is now occupied by a 3-story home.)
Still, people can drive to work in Hermosa Beach from inland cities. There, you can buy a tiny home for a mere $275,000. So, why do meter maids make $67,000 or more? Because voters pay no attention.
Municipal governments spend money as if it were going out of style, like there will be no tomorrow. Taxpayers really do pay no attention.
Then a story like this one hits a website. The city council ignores it. Why stir up trouble by investigating it? There will be no fallout.
Voters will be burdened with this sort of thing until a handful of self-appointed monitors of city spending post sites with the salary information of every employee, and when swing voters go to these sites looking for ammunition.
In the Great Default, this will end. It probably will not end until then.
Continue reading here.
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Published on August 14, 2012. The original is here.
The Chief of Police justified this policy as follows. “When you outsource, you take away union jobs.” Quite true.