Municipal Attorneys Should Stay Out of Ethics Proceedings
When a city or county attorney's office does not represent the
ethics commission, should that office play any role in an ethics
proceeding? I don't believe it should.<br>
<br>
But that is what happened recently in Cobb County, GA, according to
<a href="http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/24902251/article-Board-of-Ethics-m…; target="”_blank”">an
article last week in the Marietta <i>Daily Journal</i></a>. After an
ethics complaint was filed against four of the five county
commissioners, the county attorney quickly filed a response "asking
the ethics board to dismiss the complaint, which she called
unfounded and based on non-legal claims."<br>
<br>
I don't know if the response was filed in the name of the
respondents, effectively as their counsel, or in the name of the
county. But when most of the county commissioners are respondents, this makes
little difference. The only question is, whom did the county
attorney consult with, the commissioners or the county manager who
reports to them? But even this makes little difference, because they are
all conflicted. In fact, since the county attorney's office represents all officials, it will always be seen as biased toward the respondents in an ethics proceeding.<br>
<br>
A city or county attorney's office should not represent officials in
ethics proceedings. These are not civil proceedings against the
local government that include individual officials as defendants.
They are citizen oversight proceedings against individual officials
for the alleged breaching of personal fiduciary duties. A city or
county attorney's office should tell officials that they must seek
private attorneys to represent them. And it should leave the
determination of allegations to the ethics commission and its
counsel. The city or county attorney's opinion can only harm the ethics process,
because the opinion will be seen as biased toward the respondents. If the ethics commission agrees, it will look as if it too is biased toward the county commissioners.<br>
<br>
It was good to see that the ethics board's counsel said the right
thing in offering to withdraw from participation in the proceedings
because he is also counsel to the Cumberland Community Improvement
District, which provided a grant in support of the project that is
the subject of the complaint. He is quoted as saying, “I believe,
under the circumstances there may be an appearance that I may be in
conflict even though I’ll tell the board I don’t feel like that
would be a problem or that I could do anything other than be fair
and impartial in my consideration and advice to the board. But I
think appearances, especially with the Board of Ethics, are very
important.” We all feel we can be fair and impartial, but what matters is how we appear. And how the county attorney's opinion appears is biased, even if it may be totally correct.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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