All Corruption is Local

Though we're over four years removed from the spectacle that allowed Arnold Schwarzenegger to bypass the Republican primary and replace a sitting governor, the recall is still very much alive and well in California. We can't help it, really. No matter what the east coast snobbery may have led you believe, the rest of the nation loves a nasty, bare-knuckled mud fight just as much as DC.

The recall fad has even taken my tiny San Francisco suburb of 9,000 voters by storm, bringing with it smear campaigns and death threats -- even causing one target to flee to Iraq.

Last year, two members of the local city council (and allegedly, another former member) began targeting three others for recall. That number fell by a third when Councilman David Cole, aged 38, enlisted in the Army and high-tailed it to the middle east.

I'm really not sure what to make of Cole's decision to flee the country. On one hand, I'm against politics so ugly they can draw out the allure of an Iraqi war zone. On the other, I'm for anything that gets our elected officials to actually fight our wars.

The two remaining accused have become the targets of invective-filled direct mail, pro-recall yard displays, and demonstrations outside the local post office where recall supporters hold picket signs and chant things like, "No corruption in Pinole!"

Apparently, this fantastical opera opened when a local restaurant, The Pear Street Bistro, fell over one year behind on payments for redevelopment loans from the city. When the council members now targeted for recall then voted not to renew the contract of former city manager Belinda Espinosa, the "no" votes accused them of scapegoating her and firing her "illegally." The pro-recall council members are generally acknowledged to have been close with the ousted manager.

I'm not entirely certain how any decision not to renew a contract can be illegal or grounds for a recall, but then I don't know how anyone gets away with falling $400,000 behind in loan payments, either.

In fact, the leap from this event to the actual allegations is a bit bizarre. Council members Mary Horton (a former mayor,) and Peter Murray (the new, post-allegations mayor,) are accusing then-mayor Maria Alegria and Mayor Pro Tem Stephen Tilton of having an inappropriately friendly relationship with the Bistro's owner, and firing the city planner to cover it up. The restaurant was popular with city employees and there seems to be no proof that the accused council members were ever aware he wasn't making loan payments, so the "evidence" amounts really to speculation.

Then again, as I once told a Tijuana border guard, a small amount of power can go a long way in the hands of even smaller people, and Horton especially has done little to hide her contempt for Alegria and the fact that she had become mayor.

A photo of the two remaining accused council members with the dead-beat restaurateur has been widely circulated in pro-recall campaign literature. The picture was taken at a small business award ceremony in which Alegria and Tilton were attendance in their official capacities, and a city planner has been cropped out of it. Anti-recall groups, illustrating their own gift for histrionics, have called this "doctoring" the photo.

More uproarious are accounts of an incident that took place outside the popular local restaurant in which then-mayor Alegria, allegedly intoxicated, interfered with a police traffic stop. According to police, the driver had made an illegal turn and wasn't carrying a license or proof of insurance. The city's highest elected official, slurring under blood-shot eyes, first spoke to the officer only in Spanish. She then accused the police of "selective enforcement" and said that it could "have a negative effect" on the department's funding.

Rather than using the incident to illustrate poor judgment or disrespect for law enforcement, recall proponents are instead using it to link the former mayor to the restaurant. The driver, it seems, was a Bistro employee. If the pro-recall bloc for anything other than sour grapes, it's for missing the point.

The police have stayed neutral in the fracas, but they're just about the only ones. Local papers, unions -- even the firefighters -- have all come out against the recall. The Chairman of the county Democratic Central Committee said he received death threats on his cell phone after the party attempted to enter the fray on behalf of the targets. Police found the threats to be unrelated.

Recall backers are keeping their spirits up through an endearingly amateurish website that in bold letters spells out the many organizations opposed to their movement and even looks to the man they hope to oust, interim City Manager Charlie Long, to denounce the opposition. Long has called a mailer blasting his predecessor "really mean," "nasty" and "one of the most offensive pieces of political literature I have ever seen in my life."

You see, backers of the recall aren't the only bullies on the block. Opponents have also mobilized, in predictably ludicrous ways. Pro-recall sign stealing has become such a problem that the stakeouts have been arranged at the eye of the storm, the Pear Street Bistro. An employee was caught swiping signs and charged with petty theft. "Petty theft": I'd say that just about sums up the entire campaign.

Comments

[research]

The Culture of Corruption that the conservative rethug fascists have created DOES have a trickle down effect. In a functioning government, the state would look into city corruption, the feds, into state corruption, and the world into national corruption. Such corruption would not be allowed.

[Dem02020]

I think I maybe understand what's going on there in Pinole, but maybe not. I'm left curious about something in the matter: How and why does a private business, a restaurant at that, qualify for hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans from the city?

That's the genesis of the matter, the loans made out of the municipal accounts (or if not made out of those accounts but from a private lender, then I guess guaranteed by the city)... why?

I see reference to "redevelopment loans from the city": Is the property city-owned?

If so I still can't make sense of it, because who would borrow and pay back money, to improve property they don't even own, but merely possess as a tenant.

And so if the property was owned by the restaurateur, why then wouldn't he seek improvement loans privately, against the property he owns?

The reason I think of for not seeking a loan from a bank, is because you won't get it.
And they usually won't give it, when they think it won't be repaid.

And guess what happened.

If you say that there are certain properties in the city worth improving out of city funds, despite their being privately owned and unable to secure financing privately, I'd ask:

A restaurant?

I'd rather eat my meals at home, than spend 400 thousand dollars out of the town accounts, to improve the appearance and structure of a restaurant.


Anyway, it's food for thought.
Rather than chop those heads off on the City Council, if I were a property owner in Pinole, I'd just want that $400K repaid...
And if not repaid, then I'd want the City to take the property from the deadbeat restauranteur...
And I'd make the persons who approved the unpaid loan run the restaurant for the City...
Make them prepare the food and serve the tables and bus the tables and wash the dishes and mop the floors...

"You wanted to be in the restaurant business, now you're in the restaurant business!" I'd tell them.


All Corruption Is Local.
I like that.

[realitytrumpsbull]

The problem with taking issue with corruption or malfeasance in public office is that, as a citizen, you can sometimes face repercussions, violent ones, even, or at least harassment, loss of employment, and so forth. You can't fight City Hall. You can campaign to have elected officials recalled, but you'd damn well better have your facts in line, because There Will Be Blood. Economic blood, and probably yours rather than theirs. It depends on how deeply entrenched the corruption is, how severe the conflicts of interest are, and how apathetic the voters are. You can have council members that are dirty-filthy-rotten with it, but if the people that live in the area are ignorant and apathetic, your attempts to point out wrongdoing will fall on deaf ears, or worse yet, you could be seen as the worst nuisance, and acted against to get you to just shut up and go away.
Mexico is famous for 'la mordida'. California, being generally adjacent to Mexico, invariably will have issues dealing with public corruption, if it's not the 'mexican mayor' of Los Angeles, it'll be some other kind of siphoning of public monies for private purposes. These practices and problems aren't unique to CA, they're to be found even as far up up and away as Obama's campaign. Obama, though, thoughtfully turned back the donation from the National Slumlord's Association, there, whether out of high personal standards or the realization that he's in the spotlight, either way, he gave back the greasy money.
Three words: Conflict of interest.