When Citizens Can Sue on Behalf of Their Own City

The Short Version

After the City of Bell corruption scandal, California passed a law with a simple safeguard: a city can’t keep using the same audit partner year after year after year. Auditors are supposed to be the watchdog over how your money is spent. When the watchdog gets too comfortable with the people it’s watching, bad things stop getting reported — so the law forces a fresh set of eyes every few years.

Moving Oxnard Forward, Inc. — a nonprofit public benefit corporation based in Oxnard, whose mission includes public-interest litigation on behalf of its members and the community — says the city ignored that rule and kept paying its outside auditor long after the law required a change. So Moving Oxnard Forward is using the California False Claims Act to claw that money back into the public treasury, on behalf of the City of Oxnard itself.

Their attorney, Chad D. Morgan, filed the amended complaint in Ventura County Superior Court.

Case Documents

These pleadings are posted so readers can see the court record directly.

Why This Is a Big Deal

Normally, if city hall won’t police itself, residents are stuck. You can complain at a council meeting and go home. That’s it.

The False Claims Act changes the math. It lets ordinary people step into the shoes of the government and enforce the law on the public’s behalf — and if they recover money, they keep a share of it. In plain terms: it pays everyday citizens to catch waste that insiders missed or ignored.

That’s the equalizer. Government has lawyers, budgets, and time. Most residents have none of that. A tool like this puts a real lever in the hands of the people who actually pay the bills.

What It Means for Burbank

The exact same law applies here. Every California city, Burbank included, has to keep its audits independent and rotate its auditors. What’s happening in Oxnard is a template — proof that residents don’t have to wait for permission to demand accountability.

It also sends a message to every city government: if you cut corners on oversight, someone outside the building can now make you pay it back.

The Bigger Picture

Accountability shouldn’t depend on the goodwill of the people in charge. The whole point of self-government is that the public stays in the driver’s seat. Cases like this are a reminder that the public still can — and that the tools to keep government honest don’t only belong to government.