Rewards Within Public Service

The American myth system reaches back to Cincinnatus of Rome to honor public leaders devoted to the public good. Their most important reward is success toward that goal, joined to personal gratification in the honors accorded them by grateful citizens.

Revelations of the self-serving grabbing for perks on the part of our county leaders again belies this mythology. Government service is like any other job in our bureaucratic society: Grab what you can get, when you can get it, since honor without money is the currency of fools and losers.

The falsity that government jobs have to carry wages commensurate with “similar work in the private sector” is one of the more juicy excuses. In fact, there is no such comparison possible when the matter of power and authority are considered, linked with high status and public visibility. For the civil servants one might add security, automatic raises, unparalleled pensions.

Another canard is the mutually beneficial agreement among the leadership that higher salaries and benefits must be paid these people or else they will take top-level jobs in some other government. Foolish statements like this are made by people who sought the jobs, knowing full well the salaries and benefits--and who are not about to leave the good life in Ventura County. We may come dangerously close to the Third World axiom that government service is a quick loot before retiring to preserve and enlarge the gains of such service.

EDWARD SHUCK

Thousand Oaks