In a joint statement issued by Los Angeles County Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Mike Antonovich, L.A. County will aution off the county on Jan.5, 2009, to the highest bidder.
"We can no longer afford to own our own county," Yaroslavsky said.
The startling announcement was made after the board of supes were notified on Tuesday by LACERA [Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association] Chief Executive Officer Greg Rademacher presented them with a report on the system's financial condition, noting that from June 30, 2007, through Sept. 30, 2008, the fund dropped 8 percent, from $40.9 billion to $37.8 billion.
The bottom line is that tax payers may have to come up with an additional $500 million a year by 2011 to prop up the system, according to the report.
Being as bad at ciphering as they are, the supes asked citizens to divide seven million people or so -- legal and illegal -- into $500 million to figure out how much each resident will have to come up with to bail out the county, just in case there aren't any buyers.
"We're not totally stupid,"Antonovich said, "we're just money-mad, spending freaps who are totally fiscally irresponsible, therefore we must sell off our favorite toy, the County of Los Angeles.
"It's been our security bankie for so many years, but it's time for us to grow up, much as we don't want to," Antonovich added.
The sealed bids are open to any and all comers, but Vegas odd makers are putting their money on the Chinese.
"We already have a big investment in Chinatown," said Wi-Wil Own U, head of China's trade delegation. "We feel that L.A. County is a good investment for us. Everyone knows we can turn around a sinking economy, and unlike our food, we promise that the county won’t go broke again a year after we buy it.“
Equally strapped for cash is the City of Los Angeles -- even after dire warnings from financial experts going back more than a year -- that the City’s bloated budgets, excessive spending, overly generous salaries to union employees and sweetheart, money-losing deals for City Hall cronies.
In a rare show of bleakness, the usually perky, bantam rooster Los Angeles Mayor “11-Percent [only works 11-percent of the time] Photo Op” Antonio Villaraigosa, appeared before press photographers to announce that the City may have to do the same thing.
Blaming the City Council for approving his hyper-extended budgets, the mayor said we will watch to see how well the County deal goes, and then decide if we want to get out from under the crushing debt and budget short-falls we’ve created by auctioning off the city.
