An End-of-Year Miscellany
<b>Call for a State Municipal Lobbying Code</b><br>
It may be a big holiday week and the end of the year, but there has still been
some news on the government ethics front. <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/12/28/close-local-lo…; target="”_blank”">The
Boston <i>Globe</i> has called for</a> the state to institute
disclosure requirements for local lobbying. According to the
editorial, the only rule now is to file a letter with the Boston
city clerk when lobbying the Boston city council. One letter about
whom is represented and what the nature of the business is. You can
lobby the Boston mayor and any board or agency without notice, not
to mention the other cities and counties in the state. That doesn't cut it, at least according to the <i>Globe</i> editorial board.<br>
<br>
<b>Ethics Reform in Spokane</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.inlander.com/spokane/a-growing-wave/Content?oid=2391697" target="”_blank”">an
article in the <i>Inlander</i></a>, the Spokane council will soon
vote on ethics reforms that will give more powers and jurisdiction
to its ethics commission. It will have the authority to subpoena
witnesses, as part of a new complaint process, and there will be
enhanced training and more clarification regarding gifts and
conflicts of interest.<br>
<br>
<b>Poor Handling of a Conflict Situation in Cicero, NY</b><br>
<a href="http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/12/cicero_ethics_board_dete…; target="”_blank”">An
article on the syracuse.com website</a> tells an all-too-typical
story of the poor handling of a conflict of interest in a poor local
government ethics program (as most are in New York state). The live-in boyfriend of the Cicero, NY town
supervisor, an elected administrator and member of the three-person
town board, works as a "senior principal" for a company that serves
as the town engineer. As a town board member, the supervisor voted
three times to contract with the company.<br>
<br>
The matter came before the town ethics board, which found that she
had a conflict and should have withdrawn from participation in the
matter. So far so good.<br>
<br>
The investigation began in April and the board's decision on
December 10 was given to the town board, which refused to make it
public (somehow the newspaper got a copy of it anyway). Not only did
it take six months to investigate a simple conflict situation, but
the board's decision was only a recommendation . . . to the board
chaired by the respondent.<br>
<br>
Considering that the town board is itself conflicted and the
supervisor says she welcomed the investigation, the last thing the
board should have done was refuse to make the ethics board's
recommendation public.<br>
<br>
The other major problem is that, according to the supervisor, she had acted on advice from the town attorney and from the
district attorney's office. Neither of these offices should have
provided this advice. This advice should have come from the ethics
board. If the ethics board is permitted to provide such advice, then
the town attorney should be severely reprimanded for providing
advice (the district attorney is outside the town board's
jurisdiction; he or she should be told to keep his or her nose out
of town ethics business).<br>
<br>
If the ethics board is not permitted to provide such advice, then
the town attorney should be held accountable for improper advice. He
should be required to apologize to the town at the next town board
meeting and to take an extensive government ethics training course.<br>
<br>
But the best solution is for the ethics board to be given the
authority (and the funds) to hire an on-call government ethics
adviser to provide ethics advice to town officials and employees,
and to the ethics board itself. In addition, the ethics board's
decisions should be decisions, not recommendations to the town
board. The town board should recognize that it is conflicted in
this matter, accept the ethics board's decision without debate, and
change the law so that this situation cannot arise again.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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