Readers of our blog probably understand by now that Sacramento County is responsible for delivery of countywide or areawide services across the entire county and municipal services in the extensive urbanized,  unincorporated part of the county (the UnCity). And our readers are probably aware that - despite our efforts to always say nice, positive things - we often report on how the County has dropped the ball, whether deliberately or by accident. IT's not just us, though. Our Supervisor, Rich Desmond, routinely says that the County is not up to the job of providing municipal services here. He's right.

But what about the County's areawide duties - things like public health and welfare, criminal justice (jail, and courts), the regional airports and regional parks, voting systems, tax collection and distribution, etc. Sadly, the County sometimes seems to not be doing a great job with its areawide role either. The Davis Vanguard recently reported on the Sacramento County Grand Jury finding that the County's Batters Treatment Program (a countywide service aimed at dealing with domestic violence) isn't exactly up to snuff. Obviously, we would like to see such programs be effective; we hope the Grand Jury report will do some good. But we wonder whether the need to fix that program is indicative of needs to improve other areawide services. Based on our experience with how the County handles delivery of its municipal services, we can imagine that things are not all that great on the areawide side either.

Please read this post as one of constructive criticism. We only wish the County well. It's our county, after all. But could it be that the burden of providing municipal services is getting in the way of the job of providing areawide services? The County has to provide municipal services to a population bigger than that of the state of Wyoming. Would the County be better off if it had less on its plate and could reduce its workload? What if the County let go of its responsibilities for providing municipal services to certain local areas? Like, say, our community? Hmm? Anyone have thoughts on that?