The Sunshine Boys

by Dennis Green

There is much talk throughout California, and in my beloved hometown of Alameda, about “transparency in government.” Many references to “Sunshine Laws” are made, and here, a “Sunshine Task Force” has emerged to discuss and establish a Sunshine Ordinance to strengthen existing transparency rules. Not every little dark corner of public service, however, is being shone upon.

One local news blog site, for example, ACTION ALAMEDA News, has revealed that an Alameda School Board Trustee, Mike McMahon, has three relatives on the board payroll, including his wife and daughter. And also that the school board, in violation of state and federal law, is accepting Special Education funding without being able to demonstrate a consistent program for finding and recruiting students needing such services, and then providing them. Yet there is no outcry from the Sunshine Boys.

Gadfly Jon Spangler, City Council candidate Jeff Mitchell, and the League of Women Voters all call for more light, so long as it doesn’t shine on them, or any of their pet projects.

Meanwhile, serious charges have been raised against one City Council member, Lena Tam, who is accused of leaking confidential city documents to real estate developer SunCal. Tam’s activities are documented in several hundred pages of emails and inter-office memos CC-ed to the developer and to several local partisans, including a member of the Sunshine Task Force, John Knox-White, and a local blogster, Lauren Do. Again, not only is no concern voiced by the Sunshine Boys, but instead they make excuses for Tam and the others.

At the same time, these Shiny Day People accuse the Interim City Manager and City Attorney of various crimes and misdemeanors, without specifying any codes violated except their own sense of honor. This orb of sunlight appears to be very arbitrary about where it will shine and where it will not.

Some of the public denials of wrongdoing in the Tam case provided much local entertainment, especially the claim that John Knox-White “… did not have text with that woman!” So reminiscent of Bill Clinton, except for the missing sax. And none of these people call for an investigation of the vast SunCal conspiracy to rob the taxpayers.

New Politics in Alameda, and throughout the nation really, are beginning to shape up as the unkindest cuts of all — bitter personal attacks, snarky and smarmy blog commentaries, Tea Party and Town Hall Meeting blockheads, and viral partisanship that brooks no compromise. We can only pray that most of these newbies bought too late and too expensive, that their mortgages are underwater or in default or foreclosure, and that they will soon be packing their bags back to Fresno.

For the Sunshine Boys want to hide away their own pet projects and misdemeanors where the sun don’t shine. Their idea of transparency is a means to embarrass their opponents, not to require full disclosure of the shenanigans of public employees. Not a word from them about unfunded fire fighters union pension perks, let alone exorbitant city executive payrolls.

If they really cared about corruption, equally, on all sides, in the bowels of the school district as much as city management, I’d be impressed. But as it is, all I can see from them is just another partisan smokescreen disguised as something impartial, noble and selfless.

This isn’t, of course, the first time we’ve seen such a song and dance routine in politics. Transparency in government was the claim of Ronald Reagan’s gang, until the Iran-Contra Deal was uncovered. It was also the claim of President Richard Nixon, until those 18 minutes on his office tapes went missing. We know by now that anyone who says he has an exclusive corner on sunlight is coming from the Dark Side.

©2010 Dennis Green