An Advertisement for Privatization Passes for News at LA Times

This article, titled, "An Experiment in Government", by Jenny Jarvie, from The Los Angeles Times August 19, 2007, is about how the outskirts of Atlanta Ga., in Fulton County, have been incorporating into their own cities the last two years. Most of the article is devoted to the privatization of city services instead of having traditional public institutions. For example, the article cites that county commissioners are considering replacing the Sheriff’s Department with a privately contracted jailer.
Throughout the article there is an overwhelming bias as the article only describes the moves toward incorporation as positive, for example, “For 30 years, residents of Sandy Springs (incorporated in 2005) fought a Democratic-controlled Legislature for city hood, with legislators refusing to change a law that made it difficult for new cities to be formed”, and describing the incorporation of an affluent northern community as “wining its independence in 2005”. The article also only describes the county government in negative terms, for instance, “Many who support the city hood and privatization movement say it cannot be less dysfunctional than Fulton County government has been”, but Jarvie does not indicate what “many” represents. As a matter of fact, the only quotations given from the “960,000” Fulton County residents are The Sandy Springs mayor, Eva Galambos and Interim Manager, Oliver Porter. The article begins by citing Sandy Springs’ mayor, Eva Galambos, saying that there are “almost three times as many police officers now than two years ago.”, and starts the Porter quotation with “Some are scathing”.
To add to the bias the only criticisms offered are “Many say it is too early to determine the success of the movement away from county government”, and “Some fear that private companies would be too stringent in enforcing codes and ordinances”. The article never mentions any class perspectives of privatizing the local services, For instance, privatization usually entails replacing public workers with private (sometimes temporary) workers. Which means lower wages, less benefits, the exemption of labor rights (temporary employment), less chance of equal opportunity, and less job security. This is one method of transferring public revenue from the poor and working class to the upper classes. Also privatization, despite all the talk about it being more efficient, is usually more expensive, since special interests usually out-weight picketing the most competitive bid.
The article also doesn’t point out that privatization of public services can take a voice away from the average citizen. In some instances private enterprise is exempt from observing individual rights and government oversights. A private company may not have to disclose information to the public about local issues. Private companies also have to consistently strive for larger profits this means even if expenditures aren’t cut; residents might see more limited services. For example if too few residents use public transportation at certain hours a private company might cut the service in order to maintain or boost profits. The outcome is that the public are treated more like consumers than citizens.
An example of privatization vs. local government run services is the energy deregulation in California signed by Former Governor Pete Wilson in 1996, but did not materialize until 2000. In 2000 California started to see rolling black outs, and sky rocketing energy rates, except for The City of Los Angeles which has kept its utilities public. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that the crisis was created by the private energy companies for market manipulation. By the end of the “crisis” the energy companies declared bankruptcy and lay off hundreds of workers.
Jarvie does briefly mention another issue. That separating more affluent areas into independent cities redistributes tax revenue from poorer areas to more affluent areas: increasing tax burden on the poor and working class while limiting public benefits and services to them. Another name for this redistribution that the article doesn’t utter is Urban Sprawl. Examples of it can be seen all over the United States and its affects on the majority the population have been devastating, but you can’t find that side of the story in The Los Angeles Times.
To sum privatization up you have poor and working class residents possibly paying higher local taxes for substandard services provided by other poor or working class residents with lower income jobs all so that private firms can make a profit at the public’s expense.