Who says we can't have public-private cooperation?
Or even government-church financial deals?
On Tuesday, the Orange County Board of Supervisors is set to approve a contract to help Laguna Beach United Methodist Church make some cash.
County officials have rented space at the popular church since 1984 and presently have a $4,611 monthly arrangement that grants them offices and 33 parking spaces for the Health Care Agency's Children and Youth Services program, according to government records.
The church reportedly sees more than $100,000 in monthly revenue, but in tough economic times church leaders say they are looking to use their prime location–south of the exclusive, celebrity hangout Montage Laguna Beach Resort–to boost income.
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They approached county officials and asked that they give up 20 of their assigned parking spaces so that the church can try to rent them for cash each day.
In exchange, the church agrees not to raise the county's rent through 2015.
County staff approve of the deal and the supervisors have placed the item on their no-debate, consent calendar for the Jan. 29 public hearing.
Kumbaya.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
