An Example of Backsliding

It is common for councils to engage in backsliding shortly after creating or improving a government ethics program. When there has been a scandal, councils often go further than they would like to go in establishing ethics rules and procedures. When attention to ethics matters has lessened, it often seems to be a good time to make the program more what council members would like, and this almost always means two things:  (1) making it easier for them to accept gifts and (2) making it harder for citizens to file ethics complaints or for complaints to lead to findings of an ethics violation.

According to an article in the Norwich (CT) Bulletin on Saturday, the Norwich council will be holding a public hearings on just these sorts of amendments to its 2009 ethics code. Three amendments are under consideration, two of which involve backsliding.

1. Gifts. Now, only gifts for food and beverage are allowed up to $50 per gift. The amendment would allow any gift up to $50. The best practice, in any event, is not to have dollar limits per gift, but rather aggregate annual dollar limits. Fifty dollars sounds reasonable, but this means that a contractor can set up a tab for every council member at every local restaurant, for $49.99 per meal. That is a big gift. Opening this up beyond food and beverage means that a developer could give council members season tickets to all local sports teams, if each ticket is less than $50 (or if the developer pays the amount of each ticket up to $50). Council members should not be accepting any gifts from those doing business with the government, and they should not be opening up loopholes to allow themselves to get more.

2. Complainants. The second proposed amendment would require complainants to attend public hearings on their complaint (subject to possible dismissal of the complaint), supposedly to ensure that complaints aren't filed frivolously. But frivolous complaints should be dismissed before there would be a public hearing. The only reason to require complainants to appear is to scare complainants away. It's bad enough that the ethics commission cannot file a complaint itself, based on anonymous tips that it has investigated. This would allow city employees, as well as citizens, who fear retaliation to make ethical misconduct known and acted upon. It's hard enough for such a person to file a sworn complaint under his name. Knowing that he will be forced to confront officials in a public forum may be more than many city employees are willing to do. If the council insists on doing this, it should add a requirement that city employees and officials report any possible ethical misconduct, so that their coming forward is a duty rather than a choice.

The Norwich ethics program is minimal for a city of 40,000. It does not provide for ethics training, an ethics officer, or disclosure. The ethics commission has neither independence nor teeth:  it is appointed by the council and reports to the council, and it receives counsel from the corporation counsel. And there are few ethics provisions. In other words, there is a lot of room for improvement. But the only improvement proposed — changing the time limit for a public hearing from 60 days after a complaint is filed to 60 days after probable cause is found — is, although good, minor and still falls short of best practices.

When a council backslides in its commitment to its ethics program, this sends the message that it is not serious about the program. Better that the council start to make its ethics program something to be proud of.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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