Bulletproof but Not Joke-Proof : The case of the $74,000 armored car

Let it be said first that public officials have special needs for safeguards. Because they are in the public eye and deal with controversial issues, they are subject to threats of violence. Of course, public officials should take reasonable precautions to protect themselves.

The two key words in that last paragraph are reasonable precautions. But the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is no model of moderation, at least not when it comes to spending for perks. This is the political body that imposes no spending limits on itself, that countenanced $3 million in bonuses awarded last year to top county executives and $3.4 million spent for remodeling the offices of the county administrative officer. (Well, at least that marble floor entrance was an appropriately imperial touch.)

So now the board is going overboard again--this time in its security measures, which are paid for, as usual, by the taxpayers. Records show Supervisor Mike Antonovich recently received a 1991 Buick Park Avenue that cost $28,000, plus $47,000 for security features. Supervisor Deane Dana recently got a new armored car costing $74,000.

And it doesn’t stop there. Antonovich and Dana are driven by armed chauffeurs. The armed chauffeurs drive them to the Hall of Administration, where supervisors meet in chambers protected by a metal detector, sheriff’s deputies and a glass partition separating board members from the public.

When supervisors enter the chambers, they sit in leather chairs with bulletproof backs. And if all else fails, they have one more shield: bulletproof desk blotters. Yes, desk blotters that actually can deflect bullets.

The potential for jokes in this absurd situation is all too obvious. What’s perhaps less obvious is that every dollar that’s spent to make the supervisors the human equivalents of Ft. Knox is money unspent elsewhere. Social workers, who help dysfunctional families and abused children, hold jobs of crucial importance. Yet social workers lament that they get paid about $12,000 less than the people who drive for supervisors and for some other top county officials. There’s no humor in that at all.