Look out! Look out! Pink elephants on parade

Pink elephants?

It seems not a day goes by without at least one truckload of steamy pink pachyderm poop spattering the Daily News with city administration annals. Mayor James Hahn will be the first to tell you, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with City Hall.” Hahn assures us, "They know me. They know what I stand for, that what I do is in the best interest of the city. Anyone who alleges otherwise has to prove that and I don't think they can." Now everybody knows there is no such thing as pink elephants. Surely, anybody seeing them scurrying about City Hall is surely suffering from some serious delusional malady. Hahn concludes "I think people are smart enough to look at the facts."

Well, the truth of the matter is I think we are smart enough to look at the facts. The fact is with so much pachyderm poop coming out of City Hall, there has got to be an undermined system of checks and balances ignoring a very quiet, but nonetheless conspicuous, pachyderm conducting his business at public expense.

With all the PR spin and purposeful political redirection, it is difficult for us to determine what makes this political pink elephant so terribly vexing.

The first and overwhelming problem is that we refuse to see the pink elephant because the two commonly held notions about business and government are no longer applicable in our society. One is that big business is motivated by greed and self-interest. And the other is that government is our friend because it forces businesses to be accountable to society.

Business is motivated by greed and self-interest. No problem there. We trust that the financial and legal constraints will eventually catch exploiters and keep them in check. In order to prosper legally, businesses are motivated to:

• secure and keep the best, most qualified employees,
• pay and promote in accordance with performance and merit,
• provide better products and services than their competitors, and
• provide returns to their ownership.

Businesses have even tried to align themselves with community service. In effect, to do well, businesses need to be fair and ethical.

Now let’s look at government in Los Angeles. This is where our notions just fall apart. First, the Hahn administration is in conflict with its government function — forcing businesses to be accountable to society. Hahn has his trunk in deep pink yogurt running, not regulating, the DWP, Airports, and Harbor Departments. Now that would not be such a bad thing if Hahn had the same constraints as managers running legitimate businesses in private enterprise. But Hahn does not.

Besides being just an ordinary citizen of Los Angeles, pretend you are a DWP owner. This should not be difficult because in reality citizens are the owners. Now pretend you have a Mayor who up and decided he was going to hand pick his friends and cohorts to:

• Sit on your Board of Directors.
• Run your company.
• Reward your managers for incompetence or wrongdoing.
• Transfer your profits to another company — general city fund.
• Allow employee representatives to make policy decisions
• Award contracts and contractors not based on quality, performance, and price.
• Use your company's resources (legal, public relations, purchasing departments) for personal gain or advantage.

Absolutely without question, all of these things are unethical and a very bad way to run a business, but apparently to Hahn’s credit, not illegal.

Hahn’s administration is responsible for public policy. Public policy is what holds managers accountable to the regulators and the citizens of Los Angeles. In the absence of anything resembling a coherent policy or requirement supporting efficiency, cost effectiveness, profit, or performance from any of “our” proprietary departments, Hahn has clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no place for accountability in his administration. Although we can all see this city is mired in elephant dung, we can’t prove these pink pachyderms exist because we are looking for laws instead of prudent, ethical, fair-dealing public policy. Frankly, these pink pachyderms are the public policy and accountability we just don’t see.

We citizens expect much more from our mayor. The mayor has to serve us all — businesses, citizens, workers, commuters, Republicans, Green Party, etc. Hahn’s across-the-board capture of the big city unions but dismal failure to capture the Democratic Party endorsement mirrors the way he has run this city. In effect it says, “It is wrong to run a city in the interests of a few big union supporters while ignoring the legitimate interests of others."

Not to beat a pink elephant to death, but it has to be said apparently over and over. It is not just a matter of taking into account the interests of citizens, suppliers, vendors, and employees. It is a matter of being accountable to them.