voiceofsandiego.org: Neil Morgan... If We're Now Listening to Advice, Let's Find the Best

Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2006 | At long last, City Hall is facing up to the inevitable penalties of our years of misgovernance. There is talk of charter reform, but straightforward openness and admissions about the events of recent years would be a welcome first step.

The presently favored process of recovery may seem quite a bit like bankruptcy. It would create an auditor general, an audit committee and a monitor.

At this phase, the vital question to ask of City Hall is a blunt one: Whom, if anyone, are we still trying to protect? The final actions of federal and local public attorneys may still lie ahead.

We have tentative agreement among infighting factions -- mayor, city attorney, council members -- that the city needs outside counsel in finally seeking to cleanse its image.

But as City Attorney Mike Aguirre argues, we need to remember how to get it right ourselves.

This civic cleanup needs to be led from both inside and outside the snake pit. It would have come sooner if, a year or more ago, we had heeded the advice of our best former mayor, Pete Wilson, and declared bankruptcy, with a court-appointed trustee taking charge.

But the word bankruptcy carries the stigma of misdeeds, and at the time it seemed too ugly for City Council and mayor to utter the word. It rouses national headline writers and civic historians. Its onus does not soon pass.

Yet the presently favored process will seem quite a lot like bankruptcy. It creates an auditor general, an audit committee and a monitor. An outsider may serve as the ultimate controller for debt repayment and budget reform. This time, let's splurge and get a fresh face.

Might there be a more experienced tutor in restructuring the future of City Hall? Kroll has already cost us millions. Within this city of successful corporate chieftains, might we not find modern models for administering City Hall?

Mayor Jerry Sanders could ensure that it's put back together properly. He must first be bold enough to lead an earnest search around the nation for counsel that can remain untainted by the political cronyism that casts its fog over City Hall.

One factor in our favor is that Mayor Sanders, City Attorney Aguirre -- and even City Council -- seem resigned this time to accepting such counsel from the outside. If these three can agree, it must be the right course. We have reasonable managers and good staffs at City Hall, and we would do well to knock those three top heads together until all three units of city government work together in preventing future corruption. It's time we stop leaving such work up to lobbyists.

Of course without Aguirre's often offensive nagging, we might not have come this far in reform. San Diego civic history is pocked by similar instances, when intramural feuding at City Hall has taken precedence over the public good. This time, at least, a purging seems close at hand.

One has this image of Mayor Sanders, always amiable but now chastened, agreeing to follow any reform path except one set by Aguirre ... but, in the end, seeing scant alternative. In the usual unsavory way, this city has once more followed its own trail of financial chaos. Before this happens again, let's remember that it's not a political game ... it's our own city, and our own money.

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cato wrote on Sep 29, 2006 10:23 AM:

" Fred demonstrates the point that not all the nutcases in San Diego are in the loony bin. I was also going to add, "or homeless on the streets of downtown," but he certainly could be that and using a computer at the library so generously provided the have-nots by the taxpaying middle class of this city. Those middle class people he rails against are the ones who built San Diego, support it with taxes, and will dig ever so deeply into their pockets to bail out the mess created by the Democrat-controlled City Council. "

Fred wrote on Sep 20, 2006 9:34 AM:

" The gloom and doom right wingers in charge of city hall and our political media make San Diego sound like its some kind of broken down Midwestern rust belt city. It's not. San Diego can have anything it wants and can afford it. We're "America's Cheapest City" and our politicans pander to the big mouth skinflints that just want more money to remodel their kitchens. It was the right-wing local politicans that got us into this, only real leadership will get us out. "

Bill wrote on Sep 19, 2006 12:20 PM:

" There's no solution for at least two years unless one or more council members are recalled. Two years ago, when it was obvious the council was at best derelict and probably implicated, the incumbents all sailed to reelection. THAT'S the message the council got from the public. Everything else is useless blather. There has not been one change in retiree benefits, even for new hires, so the bleeding will continuje. The "big box" anti-Wal Mart provision is sailing along, proving once again the unions own the council. "

Paul wrote on Sep 19, 2006 9:41 AM:

" I recently saw a picture of the new ORANGE COUNTY civic theatre. Weren't they in bankruptcy just a few years ago? If Pete Wilson's advice would have been heeded back when, maybe by now the city would be building a new library and the Chargers would not be stonewalling the city/county efforts to come together and build a new FB stadium. "

Steve Bilson wrote on Sep 19, 2006 9:16 AM:

" We are protecting the unionized city staffers who committed the crimes of fraud and racketering in their efforts to control all water and wastewater services in the city. Why did they inform Council in 1998 that wastewater rates could NOT be lowered for homes that reduce their sewer discharges, when that it the opposite of the law? So they could exclude the private water recycling industry from their illegal monopoly. Ask the hard questions from now on, ok. No more glossing over the real problems, which have not gone away but are still working at the city. "

Down and Out in San Diego wrote on Sep 19, 2006 9:03 AM:

" When is the collective brain trust around this City going to realize that bankruptcy is not the solution. BK is used when there is no possible way to pay debts. I guess they forget that SD has the power of taxation. The courts will always see that as the first alternative before they forgive any debts. Get over the BK hang-up and start discussing real solutions. "

If We're Now Listening to Advice, Let's Find the Best

By Neil Morgan

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