12:12 a.m. - 2002-11-02
Accountability
Big shake up at City Hall. The two top people in the land department have been let go. There has been an on-going drive to develop the east end of downtown, in keeping with the rest of area, for at least ten years. It appeared that sufficient consensus had finally been reached after years of squabbling; plans were confirmed, tenders were issued and awarded. At the beginning of the year an audit was implemented of the processes used for decision-making. The results were provided to the mayor a couple of days ago. The resulting action was taken by the whole council after a daylong scrum today. To willingly risk the litigation that will likely arise from the successful bidders/contractors on the project, the problem issues would have to be ones governed by the criminal code and they would have to be very serious. Everything has ground to a halt, some of the funders/partners have withdrawn, and chaos reigns.
What is surprising about this is that anyone is surprised. One Alderman (lawyer by profession) I volunteered with had a community advisory committee. I attended because some of my projects affected the whole community and I was there to report. One of his major frustrations even then - mid 80's - was trying to get any information from the City's land department. Simple things like what did the city own, what was the value of its inventory, or what city properties were leased and who were the lessees. It was all "confidential". The dragons guarding the information? The two people just fired - quel surprise!
There were times I would have to go into the aldermanic offices for meetings about the park we helped to build. One day I was walking through reception, when I noticed one of the alderpeople sitting with a couple of the scummier developers. It was six months before the next election. Topic? How much of a campaign contribution was going to be necessary to secure this elected representative's approval on a questionable land purchase and development in our area. That practice was so common for 75% of the elected officials that they didn't even see the need to hide the betrayal of the people they were elected to represent. In that particular instance, I went back to my community board and we were at least able to head off some of the major problems even though it couldn't be stopped altogether. But the land department and these elected officials seemed to have a pact that agreed that each would stay out of the others' empire as long as they got their cut of the action. Often they teamed up together to stymie any investigation into their activities.
What would really help is if it were mandatory for all corporate entities to undergo regular and random EXTERNAL audits. Not just of their accounting practices, but also of their assets and liabilities and the decision making processes actually used to manage them. In otherwords, the real documentation, including minutes and voting records. The private/corporate community I have worked in the past 10 years is no cleaner than the public/governmental community either; think of the banking and accounting scandals recently.
It shouldn't be private citizens who have to force the issue, sometimes at great personal cost. Nor should it only be done when some long term wound has been allowed to fester to the point where it can no longer be hidden, such as the case in point. Up until this time, many individuals and groups have tried to break down the wall of secrecy surrounding this department's management of publicly owned property, while using tax dollars, without being held to account. The two individuals let go had so much authority and so many enforcers, that they managed to hold off even the lawyers, judges, and elected officials who were theoretically their bosses. If regular mandatory audits from an outside source had been in place, there wouldn't have been the opportunity to build such an impregnable empire in a city department. Regular external audits of private sector companies would make it much more difficult for a lot of the white collar criminals to operate.
Why is this such an issue? Well the biggest costs are in community safety and in taxation. It's sort of a "pay me now or pay me later" choice - the latter being considerably more expensive. The people who are being hurt the most right now are the average citizen. Who did you think was taking up the slack and carrying the risks??
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