A hospital doesn’t get built because one person has a good idea. Neither does an affordable housing development, a public park or a transit line. These projects happen because people work together.
Government officials, developers, nonprofit organizations, philanthropies and community leaders assemble resources, negotiate competing interests and build relationships. That is how plans become improvements people can see and use.
Yet the Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling in the case of former Los Angeles City Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas raises a troubling question: When does legitimate public-private collaboration cross the line into federal bribery?
I have spent more than forty years in commercial real estate. I serve on the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission, County Airport Land Use Commission, and West Carson Financing Authority. Previously, I served on the Los Angeles City Planning Commission and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument Authority. I also chair the 1871 Memorial Project, which brings together public agencies, nonprofits, and private supporters.
I have sat on both sides of the table—as a public decision-maker and a private professional working with government. That experience has taught me that public progress depends on relationships.
Consider affordable housing. Developers need financing, approvals, and community support. Government officials seek housing, jobs, and neighborhood improvements. Nonprofits contribute expertise and credibility.
Each participant wants something. Each brings something of value. But mutual benefit is not the same as a corrupt bargain.
An official might introduce a developer to a nonprofit partner. A company might support a community improvement. An elected representative might advocate for an investment that benefits constituents and the institution providing it. Such overlapping interests are not inherently improper. Often, they make projects possible.
Federal bribery law rightly prohibits corrupt exchanges involving things of value. Those benefits need not be cash; they can be indirect or intangible. But the existence of a benefit does not, by itself, establish bribery. A corrupt exchange remains essential.
That distinction matters when alleged benefits are difficult to measure. Does institutional goodwill count? Reputational advantage? Political support? At what point does a relationship built to advance a public purpose become evidence of an unlawful bargain?
The Ridley-Thomas case concerned a $100,000 contribution routed through a university to a nonprofit organization and a governmental vote involving a telehealth contract. Prosecutors alleged a corrupt exchange. Ridley-Thomas maintains his innocence. In August, the Ninth Circuit affirmed his conviction; his attorneys have petitioned for rehearing, challenging, among other things, the interpretation of a “thing of value.”
I do not presume to resolve the facts of that case, nor do I argue that public-private partnerships deserve immunity from scrutiny. Genuine corruption must be prosecuted. It undermines trust and diverts public resources.
But the law must give honest participants a sufficiently clear understanding of where legitimate cooperation ends and criminal conduct begins.
Will planning commissioners hesitate to introduce nonprofit developers to funding partners? Will elected officials avoid encouraging companies to support community institutions? Will nonprofit leaders think twice before seeking assistance from officials whose decisions may affect their work?
These are practical concerns, especially in communities where investment is already difficult to secure.
Consider South Los Angeles. Rebuilding Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital and its medical campus, developing the Crenshaw transit corridor, and expanding affordable housing and neighborhood infrastructure required years of advocacy, negotiation, and cooperation across institutional boundaries.
Ridley-Thomas played a significant leadership role in advancing many of those investments. Whatever one thinks of his criminal case, his public career illustrates a larger reality: transformative community development requires relationships among institutions with overlapping interests.
The Supreme Court has cautioned against interpretations of federal corruption laws that leave public officials guessing about the legality of ordinary conduct. The same uncertainty can affect developers, nonprofits and community organizations whose work depends on government partnerships.
Accountability is indispensable. So is clarity. Public servants and private partners must be able to pursue community improvements without treating every reciprocal benefit as a potential criminal transaction.
When that distinction becomes uncertain, developers reconsider, nonprofits retreat, and investments stall. Communities waiting for hospitals, homes, transit, and opportunity bear the cost.
Genuine corruption deserves prosecution. Legitimate collaboration deserves protection. The law must distinguish between them.
