Last Week Tonight with John Oliver tackles the corruption and mismanagement of special districts, which are well known to professional planners, but perhaps not to the rest of the general public.
According to the latest episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, there are some 40,000 special districts in the country, spending a total of $100 billion a year.
To Oliver, that those numbers might comes as a surprise to many Americans. In fact: "You may not even know how many districts you are living in right now." Also, Oliver says, "Think of a special district like a cult. It can take your money, and you may not even be aware that you're in one."
To illustrate the strange world of special districts, Oliver gives the Mosquito Control District in the Town of Litchfield, New Hampshire major respect for running their meetings so scrupulously despite a lack of public attention to the proceedings. The Isaacson Municipal Utility District, on the other hand, gets major ignominy for faulty accounting, as does the Garrett Volunteer Fire Department in Floyd County, Kentucky, for spending taxpayer money on fireworks.
Oliver has more examples, all of which show his rare ability to make jokes out of wonky, and depressing topics.
FULL STORY: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Special Districts (HBO)
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