The incentives of holders of public office are completely warped. If you represent taxpayers, the last thing you want is for your city / state / county to face

The incentives of holders of public office are completely warped. If you represent taxpayers, the last thing you want is for your city / state / county to face a huge settlement bill, so it's all denials, all around. This makes it impossible to fix the underlying problem -- it's the opposite of a blameless postmortem culture that should underlie productive systems design.