Letter: Time to think outside the box in government

I just read the Hollister mayoral candidate statements and can’t help but think we are adding another chief while laying off more Indians. More government will always fix things, right??? That’s seems to be the Democratic mantra. It’s time to think outside the box!
Two years ago, Joint Venture Silicon Valley presented a very timely study recommending what they called Cross Jurisdiction Collaboration. The idea is simply to do what corporate America learned and has done for decades; namely, find and take advantage of economies of scale to save money. In this case and especially in this challenging economy, the idea is for smaller communities to find opportunities to collaborate and consolidate services to save or at least stretch scarce taxpayer dollars. Given Hollister’s and San Benito’s budget crises and with so many so-called “county islands” in Hollister, why don’t our leaders begin to think outside their Hollister or San Benito boxes? Take some lessons from our Silicon Valley neighbors and find ways to save money by consolidating public works, planning, fire protection and law enforcement. And what, we have 12 or 13 different school districts? Talk about redundancies and lack of economy of scale!
Corporate leadership is accountable to their shareholders and when those shareholders aren’t satisfied, leadership gets replaced. Let us, the public shareholders, start holding our elected government leaders to similar standards!
Paul Levy, Hollister