Corporate-Run U.S. City Holds First Election in 25 Years

This could almost qualify as a scaled-down model of any corporation where workers have no vote, except in this case, the city is the corporation:

On Tuesday night, a clerk promptly carried a metal ballot box into the City Council chamber and announced he would not count the votes.

The bizarre, and some say illegal, decision was just the latest eyebrow-raising political turn in Vernon, a city on the edge of Los Angeles where the mayor and council members have served for decades without opposition and most of the voters hold municipal jobs while living in city-owned houses.

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Founded in 1905, the five-square-mile city consists in large part of rutted roads, railroad tracks, and a densely packed maze of warehouses, meatpacking plants, fuel tanks and an occasional vacant lot. There is no high school, no movie theater, no parkland. The city's motto: "Exclusively Industrial."

Under an unusual arrangement, Vernon owns virtually all the roughly two-dozen homes in town. In its century-long history, it has had just four mayors, all related to its founders. Mayor Leonis Malburg has been on the council since the Eisenhower administration and has been mayor since 1974.

The last contested election was in 1980; the city had not bothered to hold an election since then because there were no challengers who qualified for the ballot.