Such actions, after all, could be easily construed as criminal and could lead to prosecution, especially if campaign contributions or other money was exchanged.
But thanks to the sparse reporting of the L.A. Times we don't have the facts to support accusing anyone of involvement in such a scandal.
Surely, the paper's sharp cuts account for why the dismissal Friday of Bruce W. McClendon, Los Angeles County's chief land use planner, merits only seven paragraphs.
McClendon, the Times reports, was called into the office of County Chief Executive Officer William T. Fujioka and told he was fired effective immediately and told he will get half his $191,028 yearly salary as severance after two years as head of the Department of Regional Planning.
McClendon said he believed the firing was likely in retaliation for becoming a whistle-blower against the Board of Supervisors.
He claimed he gave information to Fujioka that supervisors' aides routinely sought to improperly influence hearing officers' decisions on whether to permit development plans. "It was illegal, and they can go to jail for doing it," McClendon, 62, told the Times.
Fujioka denied that he received such information. Aides to
Supervisors Michael Antonovich, Don Knabe, Gloria Molina and Zev
Yaroslavsky declined to comment.
McClendon said that he also protected his staff from day-to-day interference from supervisors' aides, an occurrence that was supposed to be reduced by the implementation in 2007 of a new county structure.
But a citizens watchdog group last year said "the number of bosses intervening in department affairs had actually multiplied," the Times reported.
McClendon, author of five books and a past president of the American Planning Association, is credited with working to update the master planning document for the
county, which had been largely unchanged for 35 years.
Of course, somebody would have to ask for his proof, or actually conduct a complete investigation but it's hard to see that happening.
Is District Attorney Steve Cooley going to bring down the power of the law on the people who control his budget and keep him comfortably in office without actually ever becoming visible?
Without hard evidence and a thorough investigation, nobody who has watched developers get away with just about anything in the county -- or the city for that matter -- is going to believe our politicians use their influence to affect planning decisions on behalf of the people who contribute to their campaigns and treat them like royalty.
So I urge you not to leap to any conclusions. Just because McClendon says it and just because there seems to be a clear connection between development decisions and campaign contributions, doesn't make it true.
No Sir, we need an investigation to clear the good names of our public servants.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
This is the heart of corruption in this city (and county). It crosses party lines. It's very telling that your readers are not commenting. Is it that hopeless?
How sad.
Ron, please keep on this. Don't let it fall by the wayside.
We are afraid to comment.
You're right about the vacuum of reporting when it comes to the county, Ron.
James Rainey's article in today's LATimes has the reason why we see virtually no reporting about the county supervisors, and why it matters.
"A slow plague has reduced the corps of journalists who cover county government to four... who focus a critical eye on the biggest local government in America -- a $22 billion behemoth that provides policing, healthcare, welfare and more to a county of 10 million people."
(And as Alan Mittelstaedt points out in a current article in Witness L A, the county supervisors also oversee the DA's office, making it unlikely that he will probe too closely at their doings, just as he's not going anywhere near the issue of why Cardinal Mahoney refuses to deal with his pedophile priest problem, or the corruption in the southeast cities like Bell, Cudahy and so on, that he promised to clean up as a central part of his initial election camapign.)
Rainey continues: "As concern about the economic crisis spreads, everyone should be alarmed that the ranks of the watchdogs assessing the fallout for government have been cut to shreds... The thinning line of journaists at county resonates with me, in particular, because of the time I spent at the must old administration building nearly two decades ago. The enormous programs administered there, and the human cost of failure, have only grown in the meantime.
"Only a handful of states have budgets bigger than Los Angeles County's. NASA spends 25% less a year... And the county's purse strings are controlled by just five politicians, the Board of Supervisors, whose powerful incumbency means they almost never face serious reelection challenges.
"But now just four reporters tend this turf anywhere close to full time: two for the Times, one for eight dailies controlled by newspaper baron William Dean Singleton (the Daily News, Breeze, etc.) and one for City News Service, although that young reporter frequently gets pulled off for other duty... Back in my day, as many as a dozen full-time reporters walked this beat...
"All these reporters competed for scoops and broke big stories about the cut-rate leases granted to developers of county-owned Marina Del Rey, about inflated pensions for the supervisors, about lavish spending on chauffeured limousines and scandals in county departments."
He goes on with more sad detail, especially about the gutting of county news coverage by Dean Singleton's empire, whose one reporter, Troy Anderson, "looked a little stunned when I stopped by to visit last week. Not many visitors find their way to the isolated press room..."
"And don't think opportunists haven't sensed an opening.
"(Bill) Boyarsky (former Times city editor) recalled a lunch with a prominent lobbyist. 'He told me he does a lot of his work in the smaller cities, especially down in the southest (county)...because there is no oversight there."
When lobbyists avoid L A City in favor of county cities "overseen" by the County Supervisors and Steve Cooley, you really have to wonder what's going on there.
And things at the notoriously imperious body, which has long found a way to limit public commenters to a few visits every six months or so, will only get worse: "If you like the house- organ approach, take heart. The supervisors have preliminary plans to launch the county's own tv station...(pending the budget crisis).
"So the people making the news, at least, would be on hand, to report on themselves."
No wonder Ridley-Thomas and Parks fought so hard for the rare open slot. Rumor is that Janice Hahn will run for Knabe's slot when he retires in a couple of years, tilting the balance of power still again.
No idea why the county supervisors are needed or why the county exists. Every piece of their jurisdiction should be annexed to the nearby cities, so there is more accountability & transparency. It is too large an area for 5 politicos to handle.
This of course is not unique to LA County. There is a surprising amount of inappropriate dialogue (often openly) between City of LA Planning staff and Council deputies.