Vernon, the Dragons, and the Knights

Yes, boys and girls, it's time for another episode of every government ethics lover's favorite tale, Vernon and the Dragons. In the last episode, back in November, the dragon known as Los Angeles County was considering a proposal to require the city of Vernon to competitively bid housing for the city, which houses very few people, and mostly friends of government insiders (it used to be mostly city employees). The county was also considering a state constitutional amendment proposal, and the Los Angeles district attorney was pushing Vernon's disincorporation, a fancy word for what happened to Humpty Dumpty. In other words, lots of nasty people had lots of nasty ideas to hurt poor little ol' Vernon, who never hurt a flea.

Now, according to an article in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times, the dragon known as L.A. (the city) is considering a proposal to annex Vernon if it can be disincorporated.

Vernon is not completely defensive against these horrible monsters, however. It has two tricks up its sleeve. One was simply stated by the city administrator (whose two predecessors were indicted by those nasty people): "The city of L.A. would be absorbing over $1 billion in debt. Are you ready for that?" This is pretty much what every great hero has said to every dragon who threatened to eat him alive: you'd be biting off more than you can chew.

The other trick up Vernon's sleeve is to show that it is a new city, that it has turned over a new leaf (but does the polluted industrial city have any leaves left?). According to an article in yesterday's L.A. Times, it has hired a white knight, former California attorney general John Van de Kamp, to be the city's Ethics Advisor for the next year, not as an official, mind you, but on an hourly basis ($550 an hour), making him probably the most expensive ethics advisor in American history, for a city of a hundred souls. After all, Vernon, which has spent $42 million on outside attorneys over the last five years (that's $84,000 per citizen per year), has a reputation to maintain.

According to Vernon's press release on the hiring, "[Van de Kamp] will independently review and assess Vernon’s governance policies and practices as they relate to local government ethics, conflicts of interest, open government and transparency. Mr. Van de Kamp will prepare a comprehensive initial report, as well as a final report, all with the goal of making recommendations on improving existing policies and procedures and further enhancing Vernon’s municipal administration." The final report is due a year from now.

Van de Kamp will be working with others, including the state's leading government ethics star, Robert Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies (at only $450 an hour).

According to the press release, this isn't because the city really needs the help of these illustrious men. “We believe," the press release says, "that, with the changes and reforms enacted to date, Vernon already manages its affairs properly. But we are always looking for ways to improve." How heroic!

So what actually is the purpose for this independent assessment of Vernon's governance policies and practices? Since everything is golden in Vernon, are Van de Kamp and Stern not really knights, but rather witchdoctors being hired to put a spell on the L.A. dragon, in case it decides it can swallow a billion dollars in debt?

Vernon is not a city with ethics problems. It is the ultimate company town, the dream machine, a city that has had no accountability, no problem with public trust in government, in fact, no citizen participation in the normal meaning of the term. It has had no conflicts of interest, because there has been no separation of person and government. They have been one and the same.

Creating a website and a few rules cannot change all this. This is a city that is run in the interests of those who run it and the companies that have set up in a community that has no community to oppose whatever they want to do. Who is going to want to move into such a community? How can a public be created so that public trust becomes an issue?

There can be no government ethics without a public, and without a true separation of person and government. The best governance policies that ever existed can't change this. Reporting on policies under these circumstances is to act as if Vernon was a normal city. And it is to help the city seem as if it was trying to change, when it is not in a position to change what is most important.

Do we want cities such as Vernon in the U.S. of A.? That, not government ethics, not governance policies, is the issue here. We have seen how this radical form of government operates, and we know that once the pressure is on, a city such as this will try to grab on to anything it can, like a spider in a sink when the water is turned on. I hope that Van de Kamp and Stern reconsider doing this job.

For more on Vernon, see the following blog posts:
A Dream Machine
Hostile Takeovers in the Municipal World
Criminal Charges and a Civil Suit
Update on Vernon
Drastic Proposals to Disassemble the Dream Machine

And most of all, read public administration professor H. George Frederickson's wonderful fictional dialogue about Vernon.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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