Fallout from report on O.C. city officials' salaries still rankles

When a pair of graduate students from little-known Brandman University dug out the salaries of top administrators at all 34 cities in Orange County and made them public, they were showered with praise.

Cindy Smith and Janet Voshall testified before the state Legislature, were honored by the county board of supervisors and rode limousines to TV news shows.

"I gave them an award because what they did was ethical, valid and honest," Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson said. "Anybody that would question whether that was a righteous thing to do, that would immediately put up a red flag that I should be worried about them."

The students' work took on greater significance two months later when the Bell scandal erupted, revealing the high salaries of city officials there. The state followed by finding out the salaries of all top municipal officials in California and posting them on the Internet.

But then the gold turned to lead.

Smith and Voshall said the fallout from their work so rankled public officials that they had to move out of the county to find work, and their academic advisor, a 30-year political science professor, resigned his post in protest.

Fred Smoller, who founded the master's program in public administration at Brandman, accused college leaders of buckling to pressure from conservative local politicians and trampling academic freedom.

"The resignation was the only way I could draw attention to the backdoor politicking that threatened the independence and academic integrity of the MPA program," Smoller said.

Now, as a new semester begins, Smoller is back at Brandman's sister school, Chapman University, and says the public administration program he hoped would add an edge to public accountability in Orange County has been neutered.

"The good old boys club is well and lives on," said Smith, a 47-year-old mother of five. "I didn't really think that was the case, but it still is."

Smith and Voshall were enlisted as interns to compile the salaries in 2010 when Laguna Hills City Council candidate Barbara Kogerman was trying to figure out how much her city manager was making and how that stacked up against others in the county.

When Kogerman, a longtime Republican, released the report in May 2010, it backed up her suspicions: Bruce Channing of Laguna Hills was the highest-paid city manager in the county. The city, with a population of about 34,000, was giving him compensation of more than $460,000, according to the report. A story about the survey landed in the Orange County Register.

Channing insisted that Kogerman's crew had exaggerated, and figures later posted on the state controller's website placed his compensation at $380,054. Still, a grand jury report later agreed that Channing was the highest-paid city manager in the county and said his compensation "exceeds levels in other comparably sized cities both inside and outside of Orange County."

The day Kogerman's report was released, Smoller said, an angry Channing demanded to meet with the students and wanted their email addresses and phone numbers.

Smoller refused, but he agreed with Channing on one thing: The title page had credited the report to the graduate students and carried the Brandman seal, seemingly giving it the university's imprimatur. Smoller called Kogerman and insisted she remove the university's name, which she did.

Not long after the report was released, Laguna Hills Councilman Allan Songstad and Tustin Councilman Jerry Amante, officers in the Orange County Division of the League of California Cities, proposed that the group respond to the report, but the league took no action.

The Orange County chapter later broke away from the parent group, saying the league was too liberal, and formed the Assn. of California Cities-Orange County.

Along with the chief executive of the breakaway group, Amante and Songstad met with James Doti, the president of Chapman University. Smoller said they refused to meet with him.

Songstad said he and Amante made it clear to Doti that Kogerman's report would make it difficult for Brandman public administration students to get hired in the county.

"It just seemed self evident," Songstad said.

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Fallout from report on O.C. city officials' salaries still rankles

Dengan url

http://sehatgembiralami.blogspot.com/2013/09/fallout-from-report-on-oc-city.html

Sehat Gembira