I’ve been a member of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce for several years, and until recently the only gripe I’ve had was that it stopped serving fruit and pastries during morning committee meetings.

That was until chamber President Gary Toebben sent an e-mail to members last month that made me unsure of whether I should shout or shiver.

Titled “A Plan to Save Jobs and Clean Up Vernon,” it sounded initially benign. The five-square-mile city of Vernon is home to 1,800 businesses whose employees outnumber residents by about 450 to one. But its governance is so pugnaciously opaque, I’m surprised there isn’t a statue in front of City Hall depicting Justice’s scales being swiped or some gadfly getting beaten up.

Yet Toebben’s e-mail didn’t hesitate to criticize legislation recently passed by the Assembly and championed by Speaker John Perez that would disincorporate Vernon.

“We commend and appreciate the Speaker’s focus on rooting out corruption, but (the disincorporation bill) runs the danger of ‘throwing out the baby with the bath water’… the current elected officials in Vernon are well aware that dramatic changes must be made,” Toebben declared, then warned that the city’s jobs could disappear along with Vernon.

While I understand the chamber’s concern – no charter city, let alone one that champions business, has ever been dissolved – I rubbed my eyes in disbelief over the reference to Vernon’s “elected officials.”

Toebben cited the coverage of Vernon in the Los Angeles Times in his letter, which means he should know elected officials do not exist in Vernon. All of its council members have been appointed by the cabal that runs the city’s government, primarily in exchange for fat salaries (about 10 times what a typical small-town council person is paid) and low rent on the few homes within city limits, all owned by either other council members or the city.

There isn’t a council member who’s been elected in Vernon in 40 years. Its mayor, currently under indictment for voter fraud, has been in office since the 1950s.

Vernon’s last attempt at an election occurred in 2006, and would have been comical were it not so chillingly antidemocratic. It was conducted only because an outside group of eight people converted a tanning factory to an apartment house and three filed to run for City Council. Vernon cut off their utilities, evicted them and tried to remove them from the ballot.

Judge’s order

A Superior Court judge eventually had to order an election. Even then, the ballots were kept locked up in the City Clerk’s Office for six months after they were cast – until another court ordered them counted. The challengers were heckled when the ballots were finally tabulated at City Hall.

Vernon’s leaders appear undeterred by being just a Senate vote and Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature away from having their city dissolved. They recently insisted on a $200,000 “deposit” from Perez’s office in order to produce some documents he had requested. In a municipality that no doubt owns plenty of shredders but not one copier, this makes perfect sense.

Meanwhile, Toebben suggested that Perez, his colleagues and these imaginary elected officials work with the Vernon Chamber of Commerce to craft a reform of the city charter. However, that body has been in lockstep with Vernon’s shadowy leadership for too many decades to suddenly embrace transparency.

While it is understandable that businesses within Vernon should be concerned by the sudden change of having their city dissolved, by advocating essentially the status quo, Toebben and the L.A.-area chamber are supporting a complete disconnection of business interests from that of their customers, competitors, employees, regulators or anyone else.

Should Vernon be dissolved, its governance would be handed over to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. I can assure Toebben he shouldn’t get too exercised over that change, as the only new face to grace that body in the past decade is pol’s pol Mark Ridley-Thomas (in that way, Vernon’s populace would feel right at home). Moreover, not a single supervisor is politically dumb enough to touch even a hair on one of Vernon’s jobs.

The only difference is that supervisors are up for election every four years. We may not like what they do, but at least we get a say as to whether they do it.

Should my two cents cost me my $500-a-year chamber membership, so be it. I’m entrepreneurial, but I’d rather the chamber spend my dues serving fruit and pastries than preserving a defiantly corrupt city whose governance must be demolished before it can be reformed.

Ron Shinkman is a health care publisher and communications consultant in Burbank.