A New Local Ethics Program's First Matter Raises Some Important Issues
<a href="http://www.kingstonx.com/2014/07/14/editorial-another-look-maybe/" target="”_blank”">An
excellent editorial yesterday by Dan Barton</a>, editor of the
Kingston (NY) <i>Times</i>, raises a few important issues relating
to local government ethics proceedings.<br>
<br>
According to Barton, Kingston's new ethics board dismissed a complaint
from a city alderman that the mayor had violated the ethics code by
hiring as an attorney for the city's local development corporation a lawyer with whom the mayor practiced as "of counsel."<br>
<br>
The first issue involves the ethics board's investigation. <a href="http://www.kingstonx.com/2014/07/03/ethics-board-members-say-mayor-clea…; target="”_blank”">According
to the board chair</a>, the board did not interview anyone or even
look into the meaning of "of counsel" before dismissing the
complaint. However, it is possible that board members knew the
mayor's position: that he only rented space in his appointee's
office.<br>
<br>
The lack of an investigation is particularly problematic due to the
second issue: that the ethics board members were selected
within the last year by the respondent mayor. Ethics boards
selected by those under their jurisdiction need to go out of their
way to fully investigate allegations against their appointing authority, or his allies,
before dismissing these allegations.<br>
<br>
The third issue is ethics board members' political activity.
According to the editorial, the ethics board's chair is "a fervent
defender of the mayor on social media." This is unacceptable. A political activist
should not sit on an ethics board. Since she was on the board,
she should have withdrawn from participation in this matter. Her involvement requires that the matter be reopened, as the editorial suggests.<br>
<br>
The fourth issue is one that may seem obscure, but which I
encountered in my own town: the sometimes fluid definition of "of counsel."
Barton notes that the New York City Bar Association Committee on
Professional and Judicial Ethics defines it as "the existence
of a close, regular and personal relationship between the attorney
and the firm." Barton notes that "to lawyers, words mean
things — very specific, exact and really important things." And yet
some lawyers use the term "of counsel" very loosely, especially when
one definition or another serves their personal purposes.<br>
<br>
It was wrong for the mayor to have publicly ignored such evidence
as, in this case, his name on the appointee's letterhead. Renters
may share space on a sign (as the mayor did), but not on a
letterhead. Whatever their relationship actually was, it appears to
all the world that the two lawyers were more closely associated than
renter and landlord.<br>
<br>
The good thing about this case is that, especially as the
ethics board's first matter, its mishandling has caught the attention of the
board of aldermen and of the press. It looks likely that the small
city of 24,000 will take another look at, and hopefully improve its
new ethics program. The first thing it should do is change the
selection process, so that <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/770" target="”_blank”">community organizations
rather than the mayor select ethics board members</a>. But it
should do an overall review of the program, not simply tweak a
couple of things here and there.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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