Does anyone remember the first time as a kid when they lied to their parents and were hit with that old adage about “trust is earned?”
Well, I hate to break it to the decision makers at City Hall, but it applies to more than just children.
Trust is the foundation of public governance. We elect officials because we trust them to represent us and work in our best interests. Break that trust and the entire structure of our democratic system teeters.
Does anyone remember Richard Nixon? Not Nixon the statesman–Nixon the crook.
Unfortunately, due to the legacy of people like Nixon at all levels of government, this self-same public trust is very fragile.
Judging by City Manager Pat West’s recent decision to demote and not fire Craig Beck for the former-RDA chief’s “vacation-with-a-lobbyist” wine tour of Napa Valley, West apparently believes that the public trust of the Long Beach citizenry is thick enough to withstand a solid kick or two.
Mr. Beck breaks the city’s ethics oath–put him on administrative leave.
Mr. Beck tells various versions of the incident–highlight his past service to the city.
Mr. Beck is exposed through email documents–find him a new job.
What the heck? The public trust has fallen down and it can’t get up–now City Hall is playing a lengthy game of “kick-the-can” with it.
Again, I ask, has City Hall forsaken all pretenses at leadership?
If not for our sake, which I am beginning to believe does not factor in to the process at 333 Ocean Blvd. all that much, then for God’s sake, at the very least, let me believe for just one moment that these officials can at least think more than two days ahead for the sake of their careers. I mean if that is all we can get, at the very least, give us that.
It’s as if the folks at City Hall can not even imagine that this situation has the potential to be an end-of-days political Armageddon scenario for a lot of people involved.
Because, let’s be blunt–this whole affair smacks of cronyism.
Cronyism is defined as a “partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications.” It’s one of those words that not enough people use anymore to describe things that happen all too often.
Compare this definition to what we know about Mr. Beck’s situation: a city official from a small cadre of political allies has been caught violating established city ethics policies. As ‘punishment,’ this official is moved to head a bureau he has no institutional knowledge of and in which he will make more than $30,000 above the salary of the previous office holder (given, he did get a 21-percent cut in pay from his RDA salary).
Now, I’ve already ranted about Mr. Beck and what I believe should be a zero-tolerance policy regarding officials violating ethics policies, but now Mr. Beck’s poor judgment is evidently spreading to others.
This decision to “demote” or “reassign” Mr. Beck smells from head to toe.
It is irrational, flies in the face of the public trust granted, and, again looks, smells and sounds like cronyism.
So, should we be happy that at least some people at City Hall recognize the potential damage this could cause to the operations of city government?
Following Mr. West’s decision to move Mr. Beck to head a bureau at the city’s Gas and Oil department, Mayor Foster said that it was “a difficult and painful decision for the City Manager, but ultimately a very prudent one that moves toward restoring public confidence and staff morale.”
One of Webster’s definitions for ‘confidence’ is ‘the quality of trusting,” so, apparently the Mayor is cognizant of the fact that this whole debacle inaugurated by Mr. Beck has tainted the public trust in City Hall.
That should earn the Mayor one big smiley face sticker.
Unfortunately, it is balanced out by the frowny face sticker he gets for calling it a ‘prudent’ move.
And, despite the Mayor’s hope that the public confidence can be so readily restored, I don’t believe that most citizens feel it can be bought this cheaply.
I argued last week that Mr. Beck deserved the same fate that all of us might receive if we willfully broke our employer’s policies and then misled our superiors about the details of such a violation: namely we would be fired, as should have happened to Mr. Beck.
However, some of you (including evidently some decision makers at City Hall) took the position that Mr. Beck’s career before he was caught doing something wrong should be weighed against the minuscule cost of what he actually did.
Certainly the hotel room he received for free from lobbyist friend Mike Murchison (I’m assuming that two men that hang out after business hours and have fraternity-like code words for people, places and things are friends) adds little to bring the scales of justice down on the side of firing Mr. Beck. But the real cost of his actions weigh much heavier on those scales.
You see, Mr. Beck, in his position at the RDA, was responsible for many decisions that involved the expenditure of public funds. And with each slice of the responsibility pie comes a large helping of the public trust.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up a list of Mr. Murchison’s clients and then compared this list to every contract that Mr. Beck recommended for approval to the RDA Board since he took office. Yup, every single one.
Here are just a few samples (from Mr. Beck’s first year as RDA chief) that involve Mr. Murchison’s clients:
On April 7, 2008, Mr. Beck recommended that the RDA Board approve a contract with EDAW AECOM Consultants not to exceed $600,000 for the preparation of a Downtown Community Plan and Program Environmental Impact Report. At the time, the RDA did not have the necessary funds, so Mr. Beck, in the same item, recommended to the RDA Board that appropriations for the Central Redevelopment Project Area be increased by $200,000 and appropriations for Downtown Redevelopment Project Area be increased by $300,000 to cover the new contract. Mr. Beck’s recommendations were approved by the board.
On May 5, 2008, Mr. Beck asked the RDA Board, with Mr. Murchison in the audience, to approve a contract for design and engineering services to upgrade the CityPlace parking structure at the north end of the promenade. One bidder for the contract, URS Corp., submitted a bid of $684,000 while the only other bidder, PBS&J Corp., entered a bid of $1,250,000. Both firms are among the top ranked engineering firms in the nation, but there is no mention why URS–Mr. Murchison’s client–came in at nearly 50-percent less in their bid. My experience with city government over more than ten years has shown that when there is such a disparity in bidding, questions are usually asked as to why. However, in this case, no discussion was entered into by the Board on the matter and the contract was unanimously awarded to URS.
At the same meeting, in fact the very next item on the agenda, a six-month exclusive negotiating agreement between the city and the developers of the Hyatt Place hotel project at the northwest corner of 1st Street and Long Beach Boulevard was approved on Mr. Beck’s recommendation. Several clients of Mr. Murchison, including Aloft Hotels, Lennar and Hyatt, were involved or potentially impacted by the project.
On Sept. 15, 2008, Mr. Beck recommended that the RDA Board approve an amendment to increase the scope of work and reimbursement level on a contract with Lyon Realty, another of Mr. Murchison’s clients. The contract’s maximum funding level was changed from $500,000 to $876,850.
Keep in mind that these examples, which represent several million dollars in public money, are just a sampling.
And don’t get me wrong, I will be the first to admit that in the normal course of city hall business, contracts like these are signed, changed, amended and awarded all the time.
If you had asked me about these agenda items a year ago, I would have seen absolutely nothing but normal city business.
But this is not a year ago.
This is now and Mr. Beck’s ethical lapses have transformed each of these previously innocuous items into a question mark. Were they fairly awarded? Were they handled impartially by Mr. Beck, even though each involved a client of Mr. Murchison?
This is the danger of ethical impropriety. It taints all it touches both retroactively and in perpetuity.
I, for one, hope that each of the above situations was conducted with professionalism by Mr. Beck, but given what I know about him now, how can I look at any dealings he has had with one of Mr. Murchison’s clients in the past and not scratch my head.
In addition, given what we now known of Mr. Beck, how can anything he does in his new position demand anything but heightened scrutiny. This is the damage that Mr. Beck has done, this is the confidence that Mr. Beck has strained and this is the trust that Mr. Beck has thrown to the wind.
And as Mr. Beck heads down that long road of political oblivion, how many people will his actions take with him? How many others will his ethical lapses and the fallout from them taint?
Again, I can only urge people to take a few minutes and let City Hall know what you think on this matter.
There are two players at the table when it comes to the public trust, and we, the citizens of Long Beach are most certainly at one side of this table.
If we can not expect our appointed officials to act in accordance with our wishes, then we must demand it.
That’s it for the soapbox this week. Happy holidays.