Citron’s Guilty Pleas Aid Healing Process : Despite Anger, Public Must Hike Sales Tax for Recovery

Former Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron’s stunning admission of guilt on six felony counts related to the county’s bankruptcy addresses one central piece of a larger puzzle. For months, people have wondered how a treasurer’s office that for so long appeared to be a successful operation went so awry. While there is still much that we do not know, and while other investigations are pending, we now have a crucial admission from Citron that he broke the law and misled others.

There was, said Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, no evidence of any personal gain by Citron, but the claims of public officials at every level of government in Orange County that they were being duped and victimized are supported by this guilty plea. For whatever reasons Citron moved money around and falsified records, his actions constituted a serious breach of public trust and effectively involved theft from the public agencies.

That does not, of course, absolve them of their responsibility in the oversight of the fund and in their decisions to gamble imprudently. But Citron’s agreement to testify about the participation of others in the fund no doubt will shed important light on what happened and not only in the criminal investigations, but the county’s lawsuit against Merrill Lynch, its former primary investment banker.

Would that the dramatic plea arrangement resolved the bankruptcy itself, but that unfortunately is not the case. For all the drama in the Citron announcement, there was little revealed other than providing confirmation of Citron’s role and his statement that his former assistant, Matthew Raabe, was implicated in many of his crimes. Raabe has not been charged and his lawyer said he would be vindicated.

The county’s need for assigning blame and for seeing justice done in the bankruptcy is very important. However, it is separate from the most pressing matter at hand, the restitution of the county’s financial position. Plea bargains and agreements will not make the county whole again, and that is important to remember in the search for assigning accountability for the terrible $1.7-billion disaster.

Only the resolve of the county’s residents to approve a plan of recovery can do that. There was some immediate speculation whether the Citron developments would have any bearing on the passage of Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase on the June 27 ballot. In fact, there is no direct correlation between the two.

The county either can live with bankruptcy under the false satisfaction of having punished public officials by turning the measure down, or it can pass it and get on the road to recovery and a brighter future. If anything, county residents should take satisfaction in the dramatic, public evidence that prosecutors are seeking those responsible for the bankruptcy and are prepared to ask for their punishment. That is how the system should work. But now, armed with fresh evidence that the county is serious about bringing those responsible to justice, residents must be convinced that the sales tax will not go down some black hole of wasteful government, but that it represents a necessary component of recovery.

Unfortunately, Citron’s plea bargain will not close the budget gap, but it was an important benchmark in the process of reconciliation and healing.