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Officials' Inaction and Anger
Monday, February 7th, 2011
Robert Wechsler
Usually, in government
ethics situations, local officials can get away with doing nothing,
especially when the conflict isn't theirs. Few ethics codes have
provisions prohibiting complicity in and requiring the reporting of
others' ethics violations (see the
City
Ethics Model Code's provision for a provision that covers both).
That's why I found it refreshing to come across an old editorial (from 2006) excoriating a county commissioner for doing nothing in the face of others' ethics problems. The election-time editorial from the Zanesville (OH) Times Recorder criticized the county commissioner for "sitting on the sidelines" for eight years as scandals "rocked" the county government, for example, another of the three commissioners lining up a sweetheart job for his wife, and ethics allegations involving the port authority president and the county engineer.
It is heartening to see that there are people who expect officials to take a stand on ethics matters involving other high-level officials. Such people recognize how important leadership is to a good ethics environment. When officials sit on their hands, there is no one to provide ethical leadership. In fact, silence and inaction are usually seen by other officials as tacit approval of ethical misconduct.
The newspaper supported a second candidate who had criticized instances of nepotism and argued for an ethics policy, but was "quicker to point a finger than to offer solutions" and had "anger in abundance."
Too often in a poor ethics environment there are those who exhibit this sort of anger and self-righteousness, but do not put them to good use. Such people tend to see ethics as a political weapon or as a moral issue involving individuals, rather than as an area where the local government is not providing professional guidance, a situation solved by establishing an effective ethics program. When anger and self-righteousness do lead to ethics reform, the reforms are too often misguided. But often there is no concrete result at all.
The angry commissioner was elected and, when I searched for anything new in Muskingum County's ethics program, I found nothing at all.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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That's why I found it refreshing to come across an old editorial (from 2006) excoriating a county commissioner for doing nothing in the face of others' ethics problems. The election-time editorial from the Zanesville (OH) Times Recorder criticized the county commissioner for "sitting on the sidelines" for eight years as scandals "rocked" the county government, for example, another of the three commissioners lining up a sweetheart job for his wife, and ethics allegations involving the port authority president and the county engineer.
It is heartening to see that there are people who expect officials to take a stand on ethics matters involving other high-level officials. Such people recognize how important leadership is to a good ethics environment. When officials sit on their hands, there is no one to provide ethical leadership. In fact, silence and inaction are usually seen by other officials as tacit approval of ethical misconduct.
The newspaper supported a second candidate who had criticized instances of nepotism and argued for an ethics policy, but was "quicker to point a finger than to offer solutions" and had "anger in abundance."
Too often in a poor ethics environment there are those who exhibit this sort of anger and self-righteousness, but do not put them to good use. Such people tend to see ethics as a political weapon or as a moral issue involving individuals, rather than as an area where the local government is not providing professional guidance, a situation solved by establishing an effective ethics program. When anger and self-righteousness do lead to ethics reform, the reforms are too often misguided. But often there is no concrete result at all.
The angry commissioner was elected and, when I searched for anything new in Muskingum County's ethics program, I found nothing at all.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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