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Bullying an Ethics Board Pays Off in Sioux Falls
Monday, June 20th, 2011
Robert Wechsler
It staggers the imagination how combative local government officials
can sometimes be with respect to ethics commissions. A
year ago, I wrote about a former Sioux Falls (SD) council member,
Kermit Staggers, who attacked complaints filed by the city's ethics
board as "frivolous" and attacked its procedures when it gave him two
private, that is confidential, reprimands.
But this wasn't nearly enough. He had to show them that they couldn't get away with reprimanding him. According to an article in the Argus Leader this April, he filed a complaint with the state's open meetings commission, ending in a reprimand of the ethics board for reaching a decision during an executive session (the decision was to dismiss another complaint against him).
But this too wasn't enough for Kermit Staggers. He wanted the open meetings commission to reprimand each ethics board member individually, as well as the assistant city attorney who had provided advice about the meeting. The commission refused to do this, although one of its members supported the attempt.
When Staggers couldn't bully the ethics board any more at the state level, he focused on the local. He sought to have the ethics board retract its reprimands, calling them "a piece of junk." And according to an Argus Leader article on Thursday, he finally succeeded. The ethics board retracted its reprimands in exchange for Staggers' promise not to sue it. This implies that he threatened to sue it, as if any court would hear a suit against an ethics board that did nothing but tell an official confidentially that he had done something wrong. But a threat of litigation can be enough to change a lot of people's minds (see my blog post on SLAPP suits).
According to Staggers, "justice has finally prevailed." According to me, a former council member was so enraged with criticism of his actions that he publicized the confidential reprimands, which no one would otherwise have known about, and did all he could to get even. In other words, he showed that bullies can prevail against an ethics board, especially one that is toothless (i.e., only the council can enforce the ethics code).
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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But this wasn't nearly enough. He had to show them that they couldn't get away with reprimanding him. According to an article in the Argus Leader this April, he filed a complaint with the state's open meetings commission, ending in a reprimand of the ethics board for reaching a decision during an executive session (the decision was to dismiss another complaint against him).
But this too wasn't enough for Kermit Staggers. He wanted the open meetings commission to reprimand each ethics board member individually, as well as the assistant city attorney who had provided advice about the meeting. The commission refused to do this, although one of its members supported the attempt.
When Staggers couldn't bully the ethics board any more at the state level, he focused on the local. He sought to have the ethics board retract its reprimands, calling them "a piece of junk." And according to an Argus Leader article on Thursday, he finally succeeded. The ethics board retracted its reprimands in exchange for Staggers' promise not to sue it. This implies that he threatened to sue it, as if any court would hear a suit against an ethics board that did nothing but tell an official confidentially that he had done something wrong. But a threat of litigation can be enough to change a lot of people's minds (see my blog post on SLAPP suits).
According to Staggers, "justice has finally prevailed." According to me, a former council member was so enraged with criticism of his actions that he publicized the confidential reprimands, which no one would otherwise have known about, and did all he could to get even. In other words, he showed that bullies can prevail against an ethics board, especially one that is toothless (i.e., only the council can enforce the ethics code).
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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