The value of local public service

This post is written by Frank V. Zerunyan, Professor of the Practice of Governance at the University of Southern California (USC) Sol Price School of Public Policy (USC Price) and Director of Executive Education and Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) Military and Nautical Science Programmes.

• The problem: Authoritarians, bureaucracy, and hunger for power.
• Why it matters: We are losing our humanity.
• The solution: Local governance through values of collaboration, respect and compassion.

As I begin my 14th year of academic service at one of the best research universities and highly ranked public affairs schools in the United States of America, I want to reflect on the value of local public service as the antidote to many wicked challenges facing us today.

Several years ago, I shared the podium at Fordham Law School, New York, with professor Barber, who wrote a book entitled ‘If Mayors Ruled the World’. I was speaking at Fordham about my then-forthcoming journal article ‘The Evolution of the Municipal Corporation and the Innovations of Local Governance in California to Preserve Home Rule and Local Control’. Professor Barber observed then and in his book, "We have come full circle in the city's epic history. Humankind began its march to politics and civilisation in the polis – the township…The city, always the human habitat of first resort, has in today's globalised world once again become democracy's best hope."

The former mayor of Denver, Colorado, Wellington E. Webb, said, "The 19th century was a century of empires, the 20th century was a century of nation-states. The 21st century will be a century of cities." So true today that a coalition of business, government and academic colleagues have joined together to survey cities with diverse populations and economies to design an evidence-based roadmap to post-pandemic urban resilience and sustainability. As a member of the board of advisors for this worldwide endeavour, I see and appreciate the value of local public service and leadership.

The case for the human

I always tell my students that there is no greater joy or honour than serving your fellow human. In my case, 2022 marked my fourth time as Mayor of Rolling Hills Estates, California, in my 24th year of serving my local community and 20th as an elected, including during this time a few leadership roles as president of California Contract Cities representing over seven million Californians and vice president of the California Medical Board as a gubernatorial appointee representing 38 million medical consumers of the state.

Public service is not about collecting a paycheque from the government. Helping your fellow human is an activity beyond self-interest. For more than eight years now, I have had the pleasure of collaborating with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and, specifically, with the Innovation Branch for public service. I have taught in every urban continent except Australia.

My primary function has been to explain the value of local public service and collaboration in typically centralised governments where hierarchical bureaucracies create public bureaucrats rather than servants. I recall my response to a police chief in a capacity-building workshop in one of the former Soviet Republics. He was complaining of nepotism and bribes by his cops on the beat. He described the cop's favouritism towards his sister-in-law and his acceptance of bribes from others. I said to him that such conduct is a critical misunderstanding of the meaning of public office. I said, "when he (the cop) wears that uniform and badge, every citizen is his sister-in-law."

On oaths and importance

Some of us wear a uniform and/or take an oath of office to serve. We recognise and respect the accompanying responsibility. In a world of constant competition for power and influence, we govern through values of collaboration and compassion. These values are more focused at the local level, where we are the closest to the people we serve. We serve to facilitate neighbours helping neighbours without the divisions imposed on us by political interests and the media, which thrive on accentuating differences. Professor Barber's confidence in mayors and cities is not misplaced.

Today's ideological, political and less tolerant narratives and fights simply do not work at the implementation level.

Focusing on our shortcomings at the national level in the United States, we are losing sight of our progress and what we do exceptionally well in local communities. In my 24 years of serving at the local level, neither race, ethnicity, religion, nor political ideology has affected my policy decision-making for my community, region, or state. Former Mayor Bloomberg of New York accurately reflected that while the American government is "just unable to do anything…the mayors of this country still have to deal with the real world." Some political scientists and politicians pontificate and agitate, "mayors pick up the garbage." I presume he meant literally and figuratively.

As competitive as we are, our humanity as an impulse to lend a helping hand is second to none. This impulse exhibits itself at the local level, often during disasters. I recently wrote an article on disaster management planning, published on Apolitical, where I highlighted the importance of a local "facilitative platform for a limitless number of actors coming together for the greater good." This collaboration is not just a theory but a reality that we witnessed in Florida and Texas in the aftermath of hurricanes, and California after wildfires, where neighbourly acts of human kindness were on display for all to see and experience.

Making local government good

I am not naïve to not observe bad actors in local governments. Sadly, there will be evil as long as there are living and breathing humans in this world. Local governments are not immune. We must collectively fight this evil in all forms. But let us not confuse this small number of evil-doers with the overwhelming majority of good.

President Kennedy once said, "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." Martin Luther King alluded to a "promissory note to which every American was to fall heir." These calls to unity and values are what we generally practice at the local level. We serve our communities for the greater good without regard to divisions or differences. I say, generally, because, sadly, some continue to push the political ideology of divisions to my colleagues in local governance today. Some even practice it, causing more harm than good.

Today's ideological, political and less tolerant narratives and fights simply do not work at the implementation level. They erase a sense of unity in communities and complicate governance, delivering much less than the quality product our residents deserve.

Partisanship and political rhetoric without proper solutions are more costly now than ever as we face remarkable challenges in public administration including wars in Ukraine and Armenia. I predict that the love of local public service, the local reality and the importance of delivering results will promote collaboration in governance. These ideological and political fights divide us by forcing us to make false choices rather than working together on practical solutions. As we begin 2023, let us focus on the good and what unites us. In the early 18th century, which remains applicable today, Montesquieu wrote, "Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien." (The best is the mortal enemy of the good.) If cities succumb to the hatred exhibited by the ideologues and political classes, we will truly see the end of hope for democracy.

Democracy's hope is in our cities and in our humanity.

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