Los Angeles County prosecutors have been building a highly unusual case, arguing that scandal-prone Vernon isn't a true city and should be disbanded.
It started four years ago, when the district attorney's office was once again in Vernon, investigating allegations of public corruption in the industrial city south of downtown L.A. Over the last 80 years, such investigations had become a regular occurrence in Vernon. And even when prosecutors filed charges, little seemed to change.
Some in the district attorney's office began thinking about Vernon differently, questioning whether something more radical than another round of criminal charges was required to fix the community.
"There's this arrogance of, 'You can't touch me. OK, so I get fined. Big deal. So I don't live in the city, big deal,'" said Lael Rubin, a bureau director for the district attorney's office.
Prosecutors began laying out a plan to essentially dissolve Vernon's local government, producing a blueprint for disincorporation as the only way to fix the city. Prosecutors presented their plan in 2006 to a civil grand jury, which told the district attorney that the matter should go to the Legislature, Rubin said. Before that occurred, she said, the effort stalled amid a debate over the best way to proceed.
But it's now back on the table amid new corruption charges in Vernon and an expanded investigation by the California attorney general's office.
Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said last week that he believed Vernon should be disincorporated. The city has been run like a fiefdom for generations by a small group that reaps financial rewards and faces no public accountability, he said.
For Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, the latest investigation brought up a longstanding question about the city, which has only about 90 residents but is home to close to 2,000 businesses and which critics say has been controlled for decades by one family and a cadre of associates. "There's still a bigger issue: whether Vernon is a legitimate city," he said.
In documents obtained by The Times, including a report presented to the grand jury, prosecutors made the case that Vernon could never be allowed to incorporate as a city today because its structure is inherently undemocratic. The few residents are largely beholden to the city government because they either work for the city or live in city-owned housing, officials said. Contested elections are rare, prosecutors argued, and with little accountability from voters, public corruption has been allowed to fester at City Hall.
In the documents, prosecutors also argued that Vernon's status as a city essentially deprived the county and surrounding cities of taxes that could be used for schools, hospitals and other services.
Many of the latest questions have come on the heels of accounts in The Times of high pay and travel expenses for top Vernon officials, including first-class flights to New York and Ireland and thousand-dollar-a-night stays at luxury hotels including the Ritz-Carlton in New York.
Last month, The Times also reported that an ex-employee of the city's former contract security firm said he had been given a reduced-rent apartment owned by Vernon in exchange for voting for incumbent council members. Several Vernon officials had made $500,000 to more than $1 million a year, with Eric T. Fresch, a former city administrator and city attorney now paid as a legal consultant, making $1.6 million in 2008. Two weeks ago, Donal O'Callaghan, Vernon's former city administrator, was indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury on charges of conflict of interest and misappropriation of public funds involving two contracts the city established with his wife.
"This place pretends to be a city, and it's not," said Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate). "We can't allow, in the state of California, that kind of in-your-face subterfuge you find in Vernon. We should not allow it to exist."
De La Torre said he supports the idea of disincorporating Vernon or merging it with other cities to create a large city that would be subject to greater scrutiny. He said that, like Cooley's staff, his office studied the possibility about three years ago and concluded that disincorporation could be accomplished but would be challenging.
No city has been involuntarily dissolved in California. But there have been examples elsewhere.
The tiny town of New Rome, Ohio, was involuntarily disincorporated six years ago, amid accusations that it was just a money-making speed trap masquerading as a city.
Cooley's office cited the legislative action that led to the dissolution of New Rome as a model for doing away with Vernon.
District attorney records detailed prosecutors' previous efforts to have Vernon disincorporated.
