Wednesday, February 11, 2009

this is what reporting is about

The ridge line of the Santa Cruz mountains provides spectacular views of the Monterey Bay and Pacific Ocean on one side, and views of the SF Bay on the other side.  The ridge line also serves as the boundary between Santa Cruz county and Santa Clara county, but the road along that route must wend its way back and forth between counties.  Boundary or no boundary, all of that region is remote from the population centers.  Communities and services must be somewhat blind to the exact position of the boundary, and in particular this means emergency and fire protection.

Last month the local paper ran a story pointing out that the Santa Cruz side residents pay taxes to support the fire protection crews, but the Santa Clara residents do not.  That story prompted our county supervisors to investigate the magnitude of the inequality.  Today's paper contains a story on the result.  Santa Cruz will be contacting Santa Clara to ask them to pay their fair share.

Now if only we could figure out how to continue to pay for reporters to do this sort of story, for they are going broke giving it all away for free on the net.

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