Public Servant

Inside a System That Stopped Working

For seventeen years, John Lorne worked inside county government in New Mexico—first overseeing public facilities and later serving as a Zoning Enforcement Officer. What began as a belief in public service slowly became a firsthand education in systemic dysfunction, failed enforcement, institutional silence, and the quiet erosion of accountability.

Through official reports, internal correspondence, public records, and years of documented observations, Public Servant examines what happens when regulations exist on paper but are never meaningfully enforced. From controversial zoning ordinances and housing restrictions to taxpayer waste, administrative paralysis, and failed oversight, Lorne pulls back the curtain on a system that increasingly stopped serving the public it was created to protect.

But this is not a story about revenge or political ideology. It is the account of a public employee who spent years trying to work within the system before realizing the deeper problem was structural—not personal.

Part investigative memoir, part institutional examination, Public Servant asks a difficult but necessary question:

What happens when accountability disappears, but the machinery of government continues pretending to function?

✨ Forthcoming Book & Documentary Project

For me, every book has arrived at a different chapter of my life.

My first major published project, Morris Park Crew, was rooted in memory, history, and preserving a piece of New York culture and Bronx life that shaped my early years.

That book became both a personal reflection and a historical record of a generation, a neighborhood, and a movement that no longer exists in the same way today.

Surviving Grief came from loss, survival, and the years it took to process the death of my wife. That book took nearly seven years to complete and was built from journals, memories, medical records, and documentation gathered through one of the hardest periods of my life.

The book that followed Love Across Borders reflected something entirely different—a second chance. It came from rebuilding life later on, finding love overseas, remarriage, cultural differences, fatherhood later in life, and the realities of starting over in another part of the world.

Public Servant represents another chapter entirely.

For nearly two decades, I worked inside local government in New Mexico. Over time, I documented what I believed were serious failures in enforcement, accountability, oversight, and the way systems meant to protect the public often stopped functioning the way they were intended to.

I never set out to write this book. But like everything else I’ve written, it came from real life. The material already existed because I lived it, documented it, and carried it with me for years before ever putting it on paper.

There’s a time for every story.

And this is the one I’m working on now.

2024 John F Lorne All Rights Reserved

"Authentic Narratives, Real Life: Non Fiction, No Frills, No Filler."