Today's Press Telegram spends considerable ink profiling local lobbyist, Mike Murchison, and painting him as someone who lives to influence the Mayor, City Council and city staff.
They are correct. Murchison does specialize in influence. That is his job. That's what makes him effective to his clients who are attempting to do business in Long Beach. So does that make him "the bad guy?" Nope. He is effective (on most council people and seemingly the Mayor and his staff) at doing his job. He gets his clients through to the winning line.
(I have to add here that I am amazed why anyone hires a lobbyist to do business in Long Beach...a point I bring up whenever a lobbyist brings in a client to my office. I tell the client -- "you don't need to pay someone to get an appointment with my office. You just need to pick up the phone and call me. I will talk to anyone who requests a meeting. That's my job.")
If Murchison is effective at influencing decision makers it is the decision makers who need to be held accountable. And the council to date has refused to be accountable on the issue of lobbyists. Not one council member sitting on the current council, except me, voted for a lobbyist ordinance in 2008 and voted to prohibit all gifts from lobbyists. Therein lies the fault.
Last time as the council took up the lobbyist ordinance, several council members waxed sadly about how accepting gifts from lobbyists was how you did business and that to refuse the gifts was insulting.
With poetry like that, how did we ever expect city staff to refuse hotels and trips or offers for tickets to hockey games or baseball games? When your boss says its okay to accept gifts from influence peddlers, then it's hard to turn them down when they are offered to you.
From the time I ran for council (you can check out that website to verify) I called for disclosure by electeds before they vote on whether or not they have received anything from anyone connected to the issue. The response I have received to that -- "people can look up campaign reports." Really. How about the electeds taking responsibility for disclosure? I have also called for disclosure of ex parte discussions so that the public gets the benefit of knowing what was discussed on city business behind closed doors.
So this Tuesday, thanks to Councilman Robert Garcia who joined me in calling for a lobbyist ordinance, we will have yet another vote and I will again make a call for no gifts of any amount from lobbyists or anyone doing business before the City Council. I will also support disclosure of ex parte discussions.
Let's stop demonizing those who have taken advantage of a broken system and fix the system.
