Usually it’s hard to spot politicians influence peddling in Western Democracies. It’s either very subtle and difficult to detect, it’s masked by slick PR reps who can bend and twist damning facts into happy sounding statements, or it requires congressional investigations or court hearings determined to ferret out the truth.
Not so in Santa Clarita.
I was shocked -yes shocked with italics- when I glanced at Katie Geyer’s Friday story on one of the Parks Commission applicants and her working relationship with Mayor Pro Tem Frank Ferry. I was so shocked I chuckled, in fact.
Let’s review all the facts here, because none of them are in dispute.
Janell Cornell, the applicant, works by day as Principal Frank Ferry’s personal secretary at Bishop Alemany High School in the San Fernando Valley. She’s one of 13 people interested in serving as a commissioner on the City’s influential and important Parks, Recreation and Community Services commission, an appointed group of citizens charged with advising “the City Council in all matters pertaining to parks and public recreation” and cooperating “with other governmental agencies and civic groups in the advancement of sound park and recreation planning and programming.”
We’re not told how Mrs. Cornell decided to apply for the panel, but obviously, the fact that Mayor Pro Tem Frank Ferry works everyday with Mrs. Cornell is enough to raise eyebrows. But Ferry says we shouldn’t worry.
“It means nothing,” he told The Signal. “Whoever I appoint just does their job and I stay totally out of it,” Ferry says.
Come again Mr. Ferry?
Do you seriously expect us to believe that you’ll stay “totally out of” the city’s parks business in your day to day working relationship with Mrs. Cornell if you appoint her? We’re to believe that your employer/employee working relationship amounts to “nothing” when it comes to City business? We’re just supposed to trust that you won’t use your position of advantage over Mrs. Cornell to influence her decisions on the Commission?
Do you think we were born yesterday Mr Ferry?
It’s glaringly obvious to anyone that Mrs. Cornell, should she be appointed to the panel, would serve two incompatible masters: on the one hand, she’d be working for the Public via the City Council in her capacity as a Parks Commissioner, but by day she’d be working for a paycheck for a single member of the City Council.
This entire scenario strikes me as one that would likely occur in a Banana Republic, not in Santa Clarita, but a review of Ferry’s recent history shows I shouldn’t have been so shocked on Friday morning as I headed out to the parade.
In May, Ferry admitted ipso facto to violating election code when he spent some $12,000 to send mailers out advising residents to vote for Bob Kellar and Laurie Ender for City Council. State election code specifically forbids current elected officials to “make independent expenditures through their controlled committee to support or oppose another candidate.”
To that violation, Ferry pleaded ignorant, sounding very similar to his quotes in Friday’s story. “I’m not hiding anything. There was no intent. I didn’t think twice,” about the FPPC rules, of which, Ferry complained, “there are so many.”
Those troublesome rules, both the ones in writing and the unwritten conflict-of-interest ones, exist in Democracy to ensure accountability, transparency and fairness. Yes democracy -whether on the national or local level- is sloppy, inefficient and slow, but it’s that way by design to ensure that people like Frank Ferry can’t manipulate government.
So as the Council convenes tomorrow to discuss the applicants, I’ll be watching this one closely, and I suspect a number of eagle-eyed City residents will show up to ensure this doesn’t come to pass.