Municipal Service Outsourcing Comes to Orange County

We're sure this isn't the last such story we'll hear, but the city of Costa Mesa will be laying off about half its employees within six months. This follows on some other interesting developments:

• The small L.A. County city of Maywood has laid off all city employees
• San Carlos in San Mateo County has contracted out its fire department
• Colton (San Bernardino County) is looking to outsource its police services
• Long Beach is exploring the possibility of contracting for its street sweeping

These are baby steps, of course, but anytime even a faint whiff of market discipline blows through the halls of municipal government in California, we can't help but smile at it.