When Santa Ana Fever Strikes, Officials Feel the Heat

In Washington, they call it Potomac Fever--a malady caught by officeholders and generally marked by their gradual detachment from real-world views of propriety. In its most benign form, the disease causes nearsightedness about public policy; in its advanced state, it can render the victims arrogant, self-important abusers of power and land them on grainy film footage shot by undercover FBI agents.

I don’t know whether Santa Ana Fever or Orange County Ague have worked their way officially into the lexicon, but that doesn’t mean the affliction hasn’t been spotted around county government.

In recent days, we have seen the county’s retirement board rein in its travel and expense policies, following newspaper articles about the board’s overseas sallies. Indignant board members said they were just doing their jobs.

Then, The Times on Sunday disclosed Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder’s role in the county’s lease renewal talks with a marina operator in her district--a lease that had several years left to run. That was newsworthy all by itself, but made more so by the fact that the marina operator employed her son throughout early negotiations with the county. Wieder, sounding like the retirement board, said she was just trying to get the county the “best bang for our buck.”

The front-page story on Wieder in the Sunday Times ran directly below a story on White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, finally apologizing for some aspects of his personal travel policies. Sununu has, in essence, argued all along that his lofty role in government qualifies him for more leeway than others.

If Sununu and Wieder and certain members of the pension board wound up in the same room together, they’d no doubt cry in each other’s beer and wonder why, like Charlie Brown, everybody’s always picking on them.

You can picture their conversation. They’d remind each other of how many hours they put in on the job, how many extra hours that nobody ever takes note of. They’d talk about how complex the issues are with which they deal, and how the average citizen couldn’t possibly understand all the demands of the job.

All of which are probably correct. Good public servants put in an uncommon number of hours out of public sight and on uncommonly complex problems.

But what happens sometimes is that they use that as an excuse.

Kim Alexander, a policy analyst with California Common Cause, theorizes that the longer someone stays in office, the easier the rationalizations can become. “I think it comes down to two reasons,” Alexander said. “They believe it (an action) can be justified, and the idea that they can justify spending public money becomes more and more embedded in people the longer they serve.”

Perhaps blinded by the fever, some public officials delude themselves into thinking that their service grants them a measure of nobility and, with that, immunity.

I’m knocking myself out on these complicated investment issues. As long as I’m over here in Europe, what’s wrong with expensing a bottle of champagne for my trouble?

Or . . . I’m up till midnight and working weekends reading these crummy staff reports, and nobody even says thank-you. Who says I can’t give my son a little push with his employer?

“It’s not necessarily something that’s evil or corrupt, or someone saying, ‘Wow, I got this power to help a son or a friend make a profit,’ ” Alexander said. Rather, she said, relationships exist between people--either by blood or friendship or business--that later pose potential conflicts of interest.

At that stage of the game, the burden falls squarely on the officeholder.

In the latest case. . .

Should Wieder’s son have refused the job with the marina operator?

No, it was his choice to make.

Should the marina operator not have offered the lobbying job to a supervisor’s son?

No, the arrangement smells all the way from here to Petaluma, but it wasn’t illegal.

Should Harriett Wieder have distanced herself as much as possible from the negotiations, even if the marina was in her district?

The answer to that is a resounding yes.

It’s all about propriety and public confidence, Supervisor Wieder.

And of staying away from the virulent local strains of Potomac Fever.