A Convicted Council Member Tells His Story — On Stage
One of the most effective ways to create a good ethics environment is
by telling the full story of the bad ethics environment that preceded
it. If someone or, better, a number of people, have the courage and
integrity to not only admit publicly to what they and their colleagues did, but to tell it like a story, a group story, it will have a cathartic effect.
It will cleanse the community and act as a point where everything is
in the open and continues to be in the open. It will make it easier for
people to point out unethical conduct, and harder for people to act
unethically.<br>
<br>
But it almost never happens. There are denials, there are settlements,
but there are very rarely honest stories told. New people come in, but
no one really knows how new they are, and especially how new their
values are.<br>
<br>
Tonight a very unusual story-telling about local government corruption will premiere. <a href="http://anthonybeantheater.com/BoxOffice.cfm#nowplaying" target="”_blank”"><i>Reflections:
A Man and His Time</i></a> might be a terrible title, but it is a play
about a New Orleans council member, Oliver Thomas, who took a bribe to
help someone keep his parking lot contract with the city (he also got
the parking lot owner to hire a friend, who gave the council member a
percentage of his salary; for the ethics side of the matter, see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/325" target="”_blank”">my 2007 blog post on Thomas</a>).
And the council member, who went to prison for his acts, will play
himself. The play is based on his prison journals.<br>
<br>
There is one thing wrong with the play, from what I've read about it (see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/us/14bribes.html" target="”_blank”">an article
in today's New York <i>Times</i></a> and <a href="http://www.nola.com/arts/index.ssf/2011/01/oliver_thomas_stars_in_play_…; target="”_blank”">an
article in Tuesday's New Orleans <i>Times-Picayune</i></a>). It's not about
the city's lousy ethics environment, the web of relationships, the
acceptance of and complicity with unethical and criminal conduct. It's
about one man's mistake, which ruined his career and sent him to prison
and, ultimately, redemption.<br>
<br>
There are also suggestions of a white conspiracy to marginalize blacks,
to undermine trust in black leaders. Thomas does not subscribe to this
theory; he says that he was the sole author of his demise, but the
author of the play is not so sure. He cut out some references to a
conspiracy at Thomas's insistence, according to the <i>Times</i> article.<br>
<br>
But <i>was</i> Thomas the sole author of his demise? I doubt it. It is far
more likely that he did what he did because others around him were
doing the same thing. He likely thought that it was acceptable
behavior, part of doing business as a council member in New Orleans.
He's hardly the only New Orleans official to have been caught and gone to prison.<br>
<br>
To present the story as the the drama of one man is to miss what is
essential about the story, at least from a government ethics view.
Ethics environments are really what ethics programs aim to change.
And ethics environments can only be changed by a number of people. Not
only will a bad apple not change an ethics environment, but it is the
idea of a bad apple, or one man who makes a mistake, that helps poor
ethics environments continue. It is one of the myths that preserves an
ugly reality.<br>
<br>
Other such myths include: everyone does it (and the ethnic group
that ran the city before us got theirs), we deserve it for all the good
we do, don't be a stool-pigeon (or a goody-goody), and real men (and
now even women) take what they can.<br>
<br>
I wish I could see the play. If there's anything valuable in the
reviews, I'll do an update.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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