I do. In small towns like this, it's not really money. They tend to just favor people they know. It's more bias or conservatism than corruption. Things are more comfortable when you're dealing with people you know. Sure people get favors and side business and such but in total, it doesn't really add up to a whole lot.

You just described corruption. Regardless of how many dollars it is about in the end.

I can think of 0 valid reasons to ghost and undermine your elected auditors.

Did they ghost him or did he ghost them first? From what I can tell he had absolutely no idea about or even contact with the people he was supposed to audit/work with until long after the election had taken place.

So he turns up one random day to do his job and is surprised that he isn't on the agenda. I repeat, he never even talked to these guys after his election, never checked in with them to even properly organize things. Instead he just assumed "they would know".

> and undermine your elected auditors.

Given how much he just assumed will happen and failed to properly plan and ensure will happen he is doing quite a good job at helping them with it. And after all that his idea of fixing things is to write a 20+ tweet complaint on twitter. If these people are as corrupt as some here think they must love that guy, they couldn't have found a more superficial incompetent guy for the job if they tried.

go along to get along?

I would rather say be proactive and communicate, preferably in a professional manner. Walking around deliberately unaware with blindfolds on by "assuming" everything is more a skill I would expect from the "go along to get along" crowd, which is why I mean that corrupt people could hardly find a better drop in replacement for him. A passive and ignorant auditor that has to be spoon fed everything is hardly going to uncover any relevant corruption.

Why are you assuming I'm taking a stance here? I didn't say it's a good excuse just that the issue is more biases than ulterior motives.

For one thing you’re saying it’s not corruption. Nepotism and corruption don’t require ulterior motives. I do find your comment is excusing and normalizing “favoring people you know”.

I’m sure it happens, probably in my locality as well. That doesn’t mean it’s acceptable or that it shouldn’t be scandalized. The big fishies in the small ponds apparently need to be reminded of the standards they’re held to from time to time.

It's not corruption unless there is intent to defraud. That is not the case. As a formerly elected official in a small town the issue was simply that we didn't have the resources. We were all basically volunteer as our pay was a few hundred a year. Elections were ran as simply as they could be as the most we could put in was an hour or two per week. Running the meetings alone were a huge hassle. There was an overwhelming sense of just sticking to the status quo as that was the simplest thing to do.

From the outside, we certainly had plenty of folks calling us corrupt for not always getting 3 closed bids on every project or paying Joe under the table for cutting grass. Were these true allegations? Yes, but it wasn't corruption. What do you do when the grass needs to be cut because if it's not, we'll get rats in the town hall and no one responds to you calls? You call Joe who cut just your personal grass the other day and ask him to please just get it done asap because no one has time. This isn't done because we're trying to get a favor, we just needed it done quickly and reliably.

Do you also think it’s not discrimination if it’s because you just can’t afford to take a shot with a non-white or woman, if your experience tells you that white men are easier to deal with?

After all, there’s no ulterior motives in racial or sexual bias when it comes to hiring either, right?

Of course it’s easier and feels better to let the scant public funds go to people you know. That doesn’t mean it’s not corruption.

> This isn't done because we're trying to get a favor, we just needed it done quickly and reliably.

You still seem hung up on that there needs to be some form of quid-pro-quo or personal gain going on to count. That is not the case.

And well, there’s a clear difference in scale between asking Joe to cut the grass and not proactively putting the offer out (which still counts but is what it is) vs actively denying authority (however little) of your own publicly elected auditors for several years.

> From the outside, we certainly had plenty of folks calling us corrupt for not always getting 3 closed bids on every project or paying Joe under the table for cutting grass. Were these true allegations? Yes, but it wasn't corruption.

You are quite literally admitting to corruption. You’re justifying it for a common good, which… is emotionally understandable but also basically how well-meaning people justify interacting with every level or scale of corruption.

What you are describing is nepotism.

Only in very specific contexts, and usually when money is involved. Officials are allowed all kinds of biases. They can run together and endorse each other.

Yeah, that's normally considered bad.

Yeah, it's really powered by favors, in my experience. This doesn't have to be an inherently bad thing in small communities, as it gets things done, but it's obviously unfair to outsiders.

What? Of course it's inherently bad! Why does the size of the community matter? Is corruption quaint if the place it's happening is small enough?!

Sort of, yeah. It’s like the moms in the PTA going on a power trip and increasing the per parent budget from $5 to $6 dollars for the year, then later realizing the money was all spent on snacks for their meetings.

Only if you consider favors corruption. I'm guessing you are imagining pretty different situations

it’s unlikely you’d be happy living where the letter of the law is followed exactly and consistently

I would be more happy if it was... when it is not followed exactly the execution of the law gets to pick favourites on who and when they decided to enact the laws.

When laws are followed, people tend to be much more careful on the laws they write.