Picture this. You’re tutoring a forty-something college graduate from the former Yugoslavia. The discussion gets around to some of the cultural differences between his new democratic republic and the United States. Back home, pay-to-play is axiomatic – particularly when dealing with elected and appointed officials or career civil servants. He experienced this form of corruption big-time after defending his country from the Serbian army and returning home after the war to open up a bakery. For 10 years, he paid all sorts of special fees and greased government workers’ palms just to stay in business. And in his view, it’s worse now than it was under the communists.
Okay, how about another example from behind the Iron Curtain of old? You’re hosting a 17-year-old exchange student from the former Soviet Union – one of the newly democratic Turkic-speaking Stans. As he shares his plans to enter the university after spending a year in the U.S., you learn about the variety of baksheeshes he and his single mother will need to negotiate the system.
Ethical Infrastructure
While it may be comforting to know that public sector sleaziness is so much more pervasive in emerging democracies than it is here, it’s also humbling to acknowledge how far we still have to go to shed our own culture of corruption. Among the headlines in just the last few weeks, we’ve watched as the Illinois governor’s alleged pay-to-play abuses resulted in his impeachment, gubernatorial abuse of power charges triggered an investigation in Alaska, federal claims of financial corruption were leveled at Baltimore’s mayor, and similar unethical behavior has been called into question at every level of government across the country. It’s as if decay in America’s aging physical infrastructure were being mirrored by similar entropy in our country’s 220-year-old governance culture – the ethical foundations laid in place stone-by-stone by the nation’s founding fathers.
From my perch here in South Florida, I’ve followed reporting on public sector corruption in Palm Beach County over the past three years. In the last week or so, The Palm Beach Post has shared unsettling reactions from across the local political spectrum:
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The County’s GOP Chairman notes that “America has a problem. We are corrupt from coast to coast and border to border. … Clearly, here in Palm Beach County, we elect too many people not really interested in good government.”
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The County Administrator states sadly that “…It’s a disappointment any time the county gets a black eye.”
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The Chairman of the County Commission says he believes “…the federal prosecutors are here for the long haul. I think the scrutiny that the private and public sectors are facing in Palm Beach County will continue.”
The most recent high-profile, “public servant” to fall from grace is one of the County’s Commissioners, who chose to resign when confronted with federal corruption charges that could lead to a 5-year prison sentence. Mind you, this elected official is merely the fifth usual suspect to step down in the face of a federal criminal investigation in the past three years. Two of her four trailblazers were also PB county commissioners whose crimes included:
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obtaining $1.3 million in hidden interest on a land deal with the local water management district,
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taking $8 million worth of land as a kick-back for helping a developer get permission to build 2,000 homes in the County,
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taking another $50,000 to pressure someone to sell land to his associates,
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urging the County to purchase $14 million worth of development rights from a marina while not disclosing that he owed the marina’s owner $48,000,
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using his office to increase the value of a 7-acre land parcel without disclosing that he had been a part-owner in the property, and
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receiving secret profits from a $217 million project after he voted to have the County study the proposed project.
The two other malefactors, who were city commissioners in West Palm Beach (located in Palm Beach County), committed similar crimes:
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taking bribes and other payoffs for filing false claims with city agencies against a local establishment,
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forcing owners to sell their property against their will, and
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taking $50,000 from a developer without disclosing it and then hiding this bribe from the IRS by laundering the money through a jewelry store.
Corruption County, FL
So what did the most recent transgressor do to round out this pay-to-play laundry list? And why does the local newspaper recommend that federal investigators maintain a presence in “Corruption County?” Well, after a 20-year “career” in Palm Beach County politics, including three years as a Delray Beach city commissioner, the prison-bound former public official:
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accepted free and discounted stays and services at resort hotels from a developer who was then seeking to build the County’s convention center hotel,
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voted on bond issues from which she and her husband benefited without disclosing the conflict, and
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added a senior bond writer to the County’s rotation without disclosing that he had only recently arranged for her husband’s new employer to become the school district underwriter.
The Post”s highly unflattering editorial on the Commissioner’s resignation (“‘Where’s mine?’ mentality pervades Corruption County”) characterized her motivation and behavior as driven by “…her own good and not the public good,” adding that she “…believed her commission job existed to serve her need for power and money.” (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/opinion/epaper/2009/01/09/a16a_leadedit_mccarty_0109.html)
In another op-ed piece, the editor of the editorial page praises the work of federal investigators during the past five years in rooting out such corruption. Yet he adds that without The Post’s stories and pin-point leads, much of what was accomplished by the feds would not have been possible. So, while this praise for his profession and his own newspaper may seem self-serving, he feels compelled to “…note this to counter the trendy criticism of the ‘mainstream media,’ which while going through economic turbulence are derided by talk-show hosts and bloggers as irrelevant and outdated.” (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2009/01/11/a8a_schultzcol_0111.html)
Ironically, just opposite his editorial is another piece written by his team entitled “Bureaucratic beast plays nice.” After deriding bureaucratic creatures for constantly spending too much time and money just to come up with unworkable solutions, the editorial board heaps praise on the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for not behaving in a way that conforms to the stereotype, Yet he damns a faceless “bureaucracy” (comprised largely of career working stiffs, not elected or appointed officials) with faint praise for having gotten something right. (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/opinion/epaper/2009/01/11/a8a_backflow_edit_0111.html)
But that’s a musing for another post. By the way, has anyone looked into what kind of ethics training, if any, these elected officials (and their spouses) receive at the outset of their multi-year terms?
Warren Master