It's Not the Law, It's the Ethics

In three cities this week, top officials showed the ability to get away with unethical behavior, but not the ability to distinguish law from ethics.

Poor Judgment All Around
The mayor of Phoenix admitted to a romantic involvement with a woman he hired to raise campaign funds, paying her over $200,000 to, according to an Arizona Republic article, "raise funds for city-initiative campaigns supporting parks and public safety, as well as [the mayor's] re-election campaign, State of the City address and private initiatives, including those focused on international trade and an anti-recall effort."

After the relationship became public, the mayor hired a lawyer to investigate and report on whether what the mayor had done was legal or not. But was that the right question to report on?

Conflict of interest laws in Arizona, as elsewhere, apply only to benefits to an official's family members, not to friends or lovers. Is this because everyone feels it's okay to benefit close friends and lovers? No. It's a definitional problem. How many fishing trips or nights together are required for a contractor to become a friend or lover? What event determines the end of such a relationship?

The former state supreme court justice who accepted the mayor's request should have turned him down. Instead, he reported (in a document I couldn't find online), "while certain actions or payments here may prompt legitimate questions, nothing brought to my attention qualifies as a prohibited activity."

According to a Phoenix New Times article, the former justice did admonish the mayor for paying his lover $8,000 monthly retainer fees throughout 2008, even though little fundraising was accomplished at the time. Isn't this a show of preferential treatment that would not have been given to a non-lover? Or just poor judgment?

Don't Wait to Deal with Apparent Conflicts Until the Damage Is Done
According to an article in the Tri-Parish (LA) Times, an attorney general's opinion is being sought with respect to a question that is more legally than ethically clear. A blue-ribbon committee selected a developer and one of four parcels of land for a big development, complete with grants, in Terrebone parish. The selected parcel is partially owned by a former parish manager, who is now head of the parish waterworks. The other owner of the parcel is a former economic development authority president.

Two high-level parish employees and two members of the economic development authority made up four of the six members of the blue-ribbon committee. The four committee members had worked with or under the two owners of the parcel.

The law says that a former official cannot profit from dealings with the parish for two years after termination. However, neither former official has any direct dealings with the parish on this development. But both clearly benefit indirectly, and the decision of the committee looks biased toward their former colleagues.

The attorney general will most likely say that the deal is legal, because the relationship is indirect and because the two-year period will have run out by the time the deal is completed. But the deal suffers from an appearance of impropriety.

Good ethical leadership would have dealt with the problem right from the start, insisting either that the two former officials take their parcel out of the running or that the committee include no one who worked with them.

Another City Attorney Gets It Wrong
South Dakota State University in Brookings has 12,000 students. Brookings has 18,000 residents. The mayor of Brookings works for the South Dakota State University Foundation, raising money for his city's major employer, which according to an Associated Press article gets money from the city.

But the city attorney says there is no conflict of interest, because the mayor does not directly report to the university. Shouldn't it matter that this position allows the mayor to hit up individuals and entities that want to do business with the city, and that the interests of the institution he raises money for and the institution he raises taxes for may sometimes not align?

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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