101

"Political Culture of the [Corrupt] Municipality

Many local governments have an established political culture with certain expectations and practices that often determine what is seen as acceptable and not acceptable in local politics. In municipalities with an undeveloped or underdeveloped political culture, accountability and legitimacy is usually low and principles of ethics in government are not established. This can encourage corruption to take hold in the local government because citizens do not know what is considered corrupt, and local officials are not afraid to be corrupt because of the low accountability. In some places the local governments have been corrupt for so long that the citizens think that is how it is supposed to work because that is all they have been exposed to. "



Emphasis added.
Above is an excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_local_government

Mark My Words: Bell's Rizzo a Follower, Not a Leader

You know Bell, California's corrupt city manager couldn't have come up with his scheme all on his own. He surely must have gotten some tips on how to bilk the taxpayers out of 1.5 million a year from someone else.

This is one of those things where the backstory will be just as interesting and compelling as the front page articles. Why? Because my experience suggests that there is currently much co-opting of the democratic and representational principals of our government system, and that Bell's leaders are not the outlier, but the norm.