Ethics Self-Regulation Exposed by Ethics Complaint
Sometimes even a wrongheaded ethics complaint can do good, by
showing how wrongheaded a town's government
ethics program is.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.theday.com/article/20140512/OP01/305129991" target="”_blank”">an
editorial in <i>The Day</i> this week</a>, the head of a local
political party, Independence for Montville, filed an ethics
complaint alleging that a former council member who owns a hot dog stand
pushed to have the town's street vendor law changed so that street vendors
could be 500 feet rather than a mile (5280 feet) from a competing
business. Unless there were a law prohibiting former council members
from lobbying for their own interests, there would be no ethics
violation.<br>
<br>
The problem was that, in Montville (a town of 20,000 best known for
hosting the Mohegan Sun casino), it
is the town council that handles ethics complaints. As the
editors recognize, "One party is going to be in charge, which means
the public and those filing complaints are likely to look
skeptically at the council's ethical rulings, suspecting favoritism,
even if perhaps it is not there." Even if a local legislative body
is nonpartisan, or evenly split, there is still the problem of members judging their colleagues regarding issues that affect them all, so
that by letting off one colleague, they are creating (or seen to be creating) a precedent to
let themselves off in the future.<br>
<br>
When the council correctly dismissed the complaint, the complainant
upped the ante by filing complaints against five of the seven
council members — all members of the majority party — for
mishandling the complaint. When the council chair asked the town
attorney for advice, the complainant filed an ethics complaint
against the town attorney, as well, arguing that he had a conflict of interest
because he had been appointed by the council.<br>
<br>
It appears that the complainant was acting for partisan purposes and
lacked a true understanding of government ethics. But the editorial rightly
blames the council for "inviting chaos and undermining government
credibility" by handling ethics complaints itself. The editors call
for a separate, bipartisan ethics board.<br>
<br>
25 towns in Connecticut have ethics codes that do not create an
independent ethics commission (many others do not even have an ethics
code). Municipalities across the country allow their councils, city
or county attorneys, and/or supervisors to enforce their ethics
codes. As the editorial recognizes, no one trusts this
self-enforcement, because government ethics involves officials'
personal interests and relationships, and the officials who would
decide how to deal with these interests and relationships have their own personal interests and
relationships with these officials, which include party relationships, but go far beyond
them.<br>
<br>
Those who are subject to a government ethics program should not
enforce it. Ethics commissions are citizen oversight boards.
Officials are not citizens, and cannot oversee themselves and
maintain the public's trust. Sometimes it takes a partisan,
misguided individual to show a community the problems that accompany
ethics self-regulation.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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