Gwinnett County Ethics Reform I - The Failure to Follow Formal Processes
The boom years of the Oughts were very good to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwinnett_County" target="”_blank”">Gwinnett County</a>,
a
suburban Atlanta county of 800,000 that grew by a third in the last
decade. But boom times are rarely good for local government ethics, and
Gwinnett County appears to be no exception. A grand jury report
unsealed in
October (a searchable copy is attached; see below) found a series of
land acquisitions by the county at above market price (even after the
boom years ended) and from individuals with whom certain county
commissioners
had relationships and, possibly, from whom they were taking bribes and
kickbacks (see <a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/gwinnett-judge-unseals-bombshell-69398…; target="”_blank”">an
article
on the grand jury report in the Atlanta <i>Journal-Constitution</i></a>). So far, two county commissioners and one judge have resigned.<br>
<br>
In three blog posts, I will look at what happened, at the ethics
reforms recommended by a 2007 report and by the grand jury, and at how
recommended ethics reforms have been greeted by the county commissioners.<br>
<br>
<b>The Failure to Follow Formal Processes</b><br>
What happened can best be summed up as an old-boy network that was the
ordinary course of county business. Here, for example, is the grand
jury's conclusion about one of the land deals (p. 29):<ul>
The Grand Jury can find no rational, reasonable basis for the
acquisition of this property other than to bail out the son of an old
friend of several members of the Board of Commissioners.</ul>
The grand jury looked closely at five land deals from 2004 to 2009, all
of them ostensibly for the purpose of creating parks. None of them have
become parks.<br>
<br>
The grand jury interviewed county officials about the formal land
acquisition process. It found that none of the five land deals followed
this process. Process is the most overlooked aspect of government
ethics, largely because it rarely gets its own ethics provision.
Failing to set up or follow processes, and exploiting loopholes
in processes, is a principal way officials use their office to benefit
themselves and others. This is true especially of the contract bidding
and land sale,
acquisition, and approval processes.<br>
<br>
What is especially troubling is the grand jury's finding that "No
present or past commissioner who testified before the Grand Jury
displayed any familiarity or understanding of this process." (p. 12)
That is, it isn't that they took advantage of loopholes, bullied
officials, or schemed to get around the land acquisition process, as so often occurs. They
simply ignored it as if it didn't exist. Laws and processes meant
nothing to them.<br>
<br>
<b>The Custom of District Courtesy</b><br>
What did mean a lot to the commissioners was the "custom of district
courtesy," as the grand jury calls it (p. 23) before describing it as
"wildly out of control." This custom provides that no land acquisition
matter would be put on the agenda for review by the board of
commissioners unless staff received the approval of the commissioner
for the district in which the land was located (or the chair's
approval, which apparently would not be given without the appropriate
district
commissioner's approval, except when, as in one land deal, the chair
wanted to "stick it to" the district commissioner and help an old
friend and political supporter (p. 35-36)).<br>
<br>
I disagree with the grand jury. This custom was not "wildly out of
control." It was what controlled the actual as opposed to the formal
process, as this sort of custom
does in many cities and counties (see my posts on its use in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/council-fiefdoms-and-unethical-behavi…; target="”_blank”">Dallas
</a>and <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/pay-play-culture-prince-georges-count…; target="”_blank”">Prince
George's
County, MD</a>, for example).<br>
<br>
Why are customs like this a problem? One reason, as the grand jury
points out, is that it costs taxpayers a lot of money, in this case $3.4 million (for the five land deals alone).
A second reason is that these millions
of dollars benefited those with special relationships to certain
commissioners and, possibly, certain commissioners themselves, thus
undermining
trust in county government.<br>
<br>
A third reason is that this custom
gives other commissioners the ability to deny any knowledge of the
transaction, rather than giving them the responsibility of learning
about the transaction and determining whether it is in the best
interests of the county. And needless to say, commissioners did tell
the grand jury they knew nothing about the other districts' land deals.
They had no interest in providing oversight if it meant others'
oversight over
their own transactions.<br>
<br>
And that's the fourth and most important reason, from the government
ethics point of view. When a district representative has
effectively full authority over deals and contracts in his district,
this makes those deals and contracts not the county's, but the
representative's. The representative
comes to think of what happens in his district as somehow separate
from the county, including its processes, and he tends to think of
what happens in other districts as none of their business. Districts
might be good for accountability from voters in the electoral sense,
but they are not good
when district representatives are given special powers
that they can use to help themselves and their family, friends, and
business associates.<br>
<br>
<b>Disconnects</b><br>
An interesting wrinkle in some of these matters was that the deals were
settlements of lawsuits, or so the story went. But the grand jury found
a serious disconnect between the commissioners' version of the stories
and the law department's (p. 37):<ul>
The Grand Jury heard testimony that the perception of
Commissioners Kenerly, Nasuti and Beaudreau was that the lawyers for
the County were unable to prevail in zoning lawsuits so settlement was
their only option. The testimony from the Law Department was that the
County prevails in most zoning lawsuits and in any event the result of
a loss would be a remand for a new zoning decision not the payment of
monetary damages.</ul>
This sort of disconnect between the county commission and the rest of
the government seems to go through the entire land acquisition process.
The only page they seemed to both inhabit was the acceptance of the old
boy network as a given. It is because of this disconnect that the grand
jury's principal recommendations involve a restructuring of county
government (see pp. 46ff).<br>
<br>
In the second blog post</a>, I will look at recommendations for ethics
reform by the grand jury, as well as by the Carl Vinson Institute of
Government back in 2007.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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