The L.A. County Board of Supervisors has a serious drinking problem.
The Board of Supervisors does a lot of important things. It deals with property taxes and parents who are delinquent on child support. It declared March 28 to be “Passport Day” throughout Los Angeles County.
The board members’ level of transparency is applaudable for a government agency: Every week, they appear on public access to televise their board meetings. But one intrepid Los Angeles Times reporter noticed something unusual: All of the board members were drinking out of plastic water bottles featuring a custom-made label with the city seal on it.
It turns out the board had ordered that the regular labels be taken off the bottles to avoid free publicity for the company that makes them. Then they had an intern print out special labels and tape them on the bottles.
This is ridiculous. Free publicity? On a public access show about a government meeting? Are people really making their bottled-water choices based on what their district representative is drinking?
Water bottles tend to be marketed with fun, tanned, gym-frequenting people having their thirst quenched by the earth-shattering purity of water. A somber city council member sipping his water while he discusses Passport Day is probably the opposite of what those companies were going for.
And let’s get real here: It’s nice that they’re televising their meetings, but apart from reporters, other government officials and people who are incapable of changing the channel, their gatherings probably don’t have much of a market share. Especially since they’re in the relatively viewer-free 9:30 a.m. spot on Tuesdays.
Furthermore, they’re not only removing but replacing the labels? They could just take the labels off and leave it at that. Or they could bring in their own water bottles ”“ unless they’re concerned about giving away coveted public-access publicity to those companies, too.
And then there’s the environment. In case you missed it, plastic bottles are awful. Some cities have banned selling plastic bottles in all government-run buildings.
The United Church of Canada declared plastic water bottles to be immoral. It takes a lot of oil to produce a plastic bottle, and most of them end up in landfills. It has been suggested that some types produce a carcinogen as they break down, releasing it into your water if you reuse the bottle.
It seems like the board would do well by Mother Nature to buy a pitcher and some glasses and get water from the tap.
Plus, to beat the bad-economy drum, this bottled water business is costing us big money. Aside from what they’re paying an intern to print and tape new labels, buying water bottles to begin with is not a particularly cost-conscious move.
Three years ago, Mayor Villaraigosa told city employees that they had to buy their own bottled water to drink at work.
Mysteriously, since then, county spending on bottled water has more than doubled. An audit released by the city controller found that in three years, the expenditures on bottled water have gone to $189,000 per year from $89,000 per year.
To put that into perspective, L.A. County recently canceled its free spay and neuter program, citing budget deficiencies. The entire program cost $150,000 per year.
The L.A. government needs to prioritize. Reducing animal population: important. Drinking relabeled bottled water: not important. Bad, actually.
The L.A. County Board of Supervisors ““ actually, everyone ““ should get with the program and start bringing a cup or reusable bottle and start filling it with tap water.