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Hostile Takeovers in the Municipal World
Sunday, January 18th, 2009
Robert Wechsler
When I wrote
about the "industrial city" of Vernon, California a year ago, I
didn't pay attention to a story that would, if it were true
(allegations have been made but, as far as I know, not proven), make
for a great movie, at least as dramatic as Chinatown,
about municipal corruption in Southern California.
I highly recommend that you read my earlier blog entry before reading ahead, to get the background on Vernon, where almost all the inhabitants work for the city.
I came across a January 13, 2009 California appellate court decision concerning the "outsiders" mentioned only in passing in my earlier blog entry. I also found an Associated Press article that makes the Vernon machine look like a family cookout. (And don't forget to read Prof. H. George Frederickson's incredible semi-fictional dialogue on Vernon, which refers to the outsiders part of the story on page 2.)
The California appellate court found that the outsiders were legally registered to vote in Vernon. These were several men who moved into a Vernon commercial building, registered to vote (three of them also registered to run for city council, which hadn't had any contenders in decades), and were promptly evicted by Vernon authorities. Vernon insisted the outsiders were associated with Albert T. Robles, who, they say, was fraudulently trying to take over the city (although the court found no evidence of such a conspiracy, the stated facts in the decision are fascinating).
Who is Robles? He was formerly Mayor, Treasurer, and Deputy City Manager (at different times) of a nearby town, South Gate. According to the AP article, Robles "was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for extracting nearly $2 million in bribes from contractors that he funneled to family and friends." He also allegedly drove the town to the edge of bankruptcy.
"'There are different levels of hoodwinking, but I didn't think hoodwinking was a crime,' Robles ... said in court. The case's federal prosecutor said Robles turned South Gate into a 'pay-to-play' city where bribes were a cost of business."
The AP article goes further: "South Gate Treasurer Albert Robles aspired to build a 'power machine' to secretly control cities throughout the economically struggling area, according to trial testimony. One now-jailed former mayor sought to steal $6 million by steering city contracts to a shell company he owned. With little civic involvement by local residents and only glancing media scrutiny, the cities 'essentially laid themselves open for corruption, not through any fault of anybody's, but more or less through some sense of benign neglect,' said Jennifer Lentz Snyder, an assistant head deputy in the Los Angeles County district attorney's public integrity division. She believes the corruption is more pervasive than prosecutors have uncovered."
In other words, the strength of Vernon, the extreme form of a city without an involved citizenry and without a critical press, is also its weakness. If you have only 91 registered voters, it doesn't take many voters to take over the city, much the same way you would take over a company. Yes, hostile takeovers can happen to local governments.
This hostile takeover was unsuccessful, but in the fictional version, the takeover would be better planned and the sides more equal. And it would most likely be violent, which Hollywood would like. But hostile takeovers can happen peacefully.
For our government ethics purposes, what is important to recognize is that with a lack of civic involvement and media scrutiny, any town can effectively be a Vernon, that is, a machine run by a small circle of people for themselves. One big conflict of interest. Usually such a town is not run by the town employees themselves, but by a party town or county committee. And just as in Vernon, a party committee can be taken over by an organized opposition, even by people who want their town to be run ethically, not as a machine.
We can talk about corruption, lack of ethical leadership and ethics training, and all the rest, but a lack of civic involvement and media scrutiny is tough to beat when it comes to a local government's ethical environment. Yes, bloggers can make a difference, but they are usually seen as having goals of their own, and their characters are attacked, often successfully. It takes a lot to get people's attention. And then you've got to gain their confidence.
Take a look at the list of convicted local government officials at the end of the AP story. And for more information, I just discovered that, before I arrived at City Ethics, a Los Angeles Times article on Robles was reproduced on the website.
By the way, there is another Albert Robles, who recently ran for L.A. District Attorney. Please don't confuse the two!
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
I highly recommend that you read my earlier blog entry before reading ahead, to get the background on Vernon, where almost all the inhabitants work for the city.
I came across a January 13, 2009 California appellate court decision concerning the "outsiders" mentioned only in passing in my earlier blog entry. I also found an Associated Press article that makes the Vernon machine look like a family cookout. (And don't forget to read Prof. H. George Frederickson's incredible semi-fictional dialogue on Vernon, which refers to the outsiders part of the story on page 2.)
The California appellate court found that the outsiders were legally registered to vote in Vernon. These were several men who moved into a Vernon commercial building, registered to vote (three of them also registered to run for city council, which hadn't had any contenders in decades), and were promptly evicted by Vernon authorities. Vernon insisted the outsiders were associated with Albert T. Robles, who, they say, was fraudulently trying to take over the city (although the court found no evidence of such a conspiracy, the stated facts in the decision are fascinating).
Who is Robles? He was formerly Mayor, Treasurer, and Deputy City Manager (at different times) of a nearby town, South Gate. According to the AP article, Robles "was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for extracting nearly $2 million in bribes from contractors that he funneled to family and friends." He also allegedly drove the town to the edge of bankruptcy.
"'There are different levels of hoodwinking, but I didn't think hoodwinking was a crime,' Robles ... said in court. The case's federal prosecutor said Robles turned South Gate into a 'pay-to-play' city where bribes were a cost of business."
The AP article goes further: "South Gate Treasurer Albert Robles aspired to build a 'power machine' to secretly control cities throughout the economically struggling area, according to trial testimony. One now-jailed former mayor sought to steal $6 million by steering city contracts to a shell company he owned. With little civic involvement by local residents and only glancing media scrutiny, the cities 'essentially laid themselves open for corruption, not through any fault of anybody's, but more or less through some sense of benign neglect,' said Jennifer Lentz Snyder, an assistant head deputy in the Los Angeles County district attorney's public integrity division. She believes the corruption is more pervasive than prosecutors have uncovered."
In other words, the strength of Vernon, the extreme form of a city without an involved citizenry and without a critical press, is also its weakness. If you have only 91 registered voters, it doesn't take many voters to take over the city, much the same way you would take over a company. Yes, hostile takeovers can happen to local governments.
This hostile takeover was unsuccessful, but in the fictional version, the takeover would be better planned and the sides more equal. And it would most likely be violent, which Hollywood would like. But hostile takeovers can happen peacefully.
For our government ethics purposes, what is important to recognize is that with a lack of civic involvement and media scrutiny, any town can effectively be a Vernon, that is, a machine run by a small circle of people for themselves. One big conflict of interest. Usually such a town is not run by the town employees themselves, but by a party town or county committee. And just as in Vernon, a party committee can be taken over by an organized opposition, even by people who want their town to be run ethically, not as a machine.
We can talk about corruption, lack of ethical leadership and ethics training, and all the rest, but a lack of civic involvement and media scrutiny is tough to beat when it comes to a local government's ethical environment. Yes, bloggers can make a difference, but they are usually seen as having goals of their own, and their characters are attacked, often successfully. It takes a lot to get people's attention. And then you've got to gain their confidence.
Take a look at the list of convicted local government officials at the end of the AP story. And for more information, I just discovered that, before I arrived at City Ethics, a Los Angeles Times article on Robles was reproduced on the website.
By the way, there is another Albert Robles, who recently ran for L.A. District Attorney. Please don't confuse the two!
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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