Supervisors Were in Cockpit of Citron’s Doomed Plane

In Colombia, a pilot crashes a plane into a mountainside and the airline blames it in so many words on his “inattention to detail.� He was experienced, with a spotless record, but one mistake obliterated all that. The pilot’s lapse cost the lives of 163 people, including his own. His personal accountability was complete and irreversible.

Here in Orange County, the investment portfolio crashed last year into the side of a mountain. Now, grand jury transcripts have been made available, offering testimony of various people on board for the biggest financial crash in municipal government history.

Think of the transcripts as the little black box.

So far, what has come through loud and clear is “inattention to detail.� Had there been some, this crash might never have occurred. Instead, political careers and personal reputations are strewn about.

What remains to be sorted out is personal responsibility for the crash. Some don’t have the stomach for it, but it is dirty work that must be done, if only to reinforce the notion that actions (or inactions) by public officials have consequences.

Appropriately, the only person so far who has accepted responsibility is the crash pilot, former Treasurer Bob Citron. He has pleaded guilty to various charges and is hoping that, at 70, he can avoid prison. He might have been luckier had sentencing happened sooner, because with each passing day the accounts of his decisions with the vast portfolio look worse and worse. His behavior in his final months in office comes across as an unlikable combination of highhandedness and cavalier weirdness for someone with billions of dollars at his disposal.

Once I would have bet on probation for him; now, I suspect some jail time awaits.

But at least he’s fallen on his sword.

The grand jury has handed the same sword to surviving Supervisors Bill Steiner and Roger Stanton, but neither has taken Citron’s lead. They show signs of wanting to turn the grand jury’s civil accusations against them into a fight to the finish, and they shouldn’t.

Both should just make as graceful and immediate an exit as possible, with a heavy emphasis to future supervisors about remaining attentive to detail--especially the complicated stuff. Stanton and Steiner seem to be arguing that they weren’t responsible, so why quit? If supervisors aren’t responsible for supervising the county’s financial grubstake, what are they responsible for? What do they do for those 80,000 bucks and the perks and the cocktail parties? What level of disaster would warrant stepping down?

Citron may have flown this doomed airplane, but the five supervisors were in the cockpit with him. Two of them--Harriett Wieder and Tom Riley--were thrown from the wreckage when their terms ended and a third, Gaddi Vasquez, slid through the escape hatch this fall, but Stanton and Steiner are still on board.

Who knows if the district attorney can prove willful misconduct against them, and, for my money, who cares? Nobody thinks Stanton and Steiner set out to cause bankruptcy, so proving some kind of intent may be problematic. What the public clamors for, and has since Day 1, is accountability--a simple acknowledgment from the supervisors that the biggest municipal calamity in U.S. history occurred under their supervision and that they’re too embarrassed to remain in office.

That would be enough to warrant resignation, but now we have the added prospect of a prolonged legal fight that eats up more public funds. A fight for what? To prove that they had no responsibility for the bankruptcy? That’s a verdict that, like in the O.J. Simpson case, most people will never accept anyway.

Did the supervisors mean to fly the plane into the mountain? No.

Should they pay a price for doing so? Yes.

Some would argue that resigning would discourage other people from seeking office. They’d be fearful, the reasoning goes, of facing misconduct charges for errors in office.

Nah. For starters, this was an unprecedented screw up. Monumental. Historic. This wasn’t a bumpy landing on the runway; this was into the mountain. There was no local precedent for it, nor is it likely to produce a sequel remotely resembling it. If anything, future candidates might be more serious about understanding what they’re getting into before telling us what geniuses they are while they’re campaigning.

The little black box has already indicated that Steiner and Stanton either didn’t understand what Citron was doing or didn’t care enough to find out. In effect, they told us they were qualified pilots, and they weren’t.

For that reason alone, considering the disastrous consequences, it’s sayonara time.

This doesn’t have to be about crimes and punishment.

It only has to do with claiming a rightful share of responsibility for an unbridled disaster. They helped crash the plane into the mountain.

If anyone asks why they had to quit, just chalk it up to “inattention to detail.�

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Dana Parsons’ columns appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.