Preserving Records and Setting Up Responsible Gift Procedures

What can be done when a public agency that gives gifts to public officials destroys its gift records?

This question arises from an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week about the Alpharetta (GA) Convention and Visitors Bureau, an independent agency funded partially by a local hotel tax. According to the article, the bureau's CEO destroyed her records of the gifts – tickets mostly to see famous music acts – she gave out to people such as members of the city council after 2009. The city attorney told her that it was a "personal task list" and, therefore, there was no legal requirement that she track the tickets. Once again, here's a city attorney who acts as if he didn't know there was such a thing as an appearance of impropriety. Is the concept really that difficult to understand?

The article talks about the illegality of the records destruction, despite what the city attorney said. But legal or not, the records are unavailable to enforce ethics laws against the council members and the bureau. At least it is known how many free tickets the bureau gave to council members before 2009. But with the council members, it isn't certain which of them received how many tickets, at least in the last two years. This makes it very hard to determine restitution, and those who took more tickets (at least one council member apparently took none) might also be fined more.

Should the bureau, or those responsible for giving out the tickets, be held equally responsible for restitution, and a settlement be reached that assumes a high number of tickets over the last two years, thereby effectively providing restitution for the records destruction, as well?

One thing that should be done is that the city attorney and council members should be questioned about any communications between them regarding the records destruction and the city attorney's ethics advice. City attorneys are never held responsible for their ethics advice, no matter how bad it is, but in this case, if there was any hint of a conspiracy to hide the records, the city attorney should be held equally liable for any fine or restitution. He should also be penalized in some way for representing both sides to a series of highly questionable transactions.

What if it had been a company instead of a public agency? Sunshine laws would not apply, but a company making gifts to public officials should be required by the local government to keep such records for at least seven years. If companies prefer not to do this, then all they have to do is stop giving gifts to public officials.

Of course, the gift receivers should also be keeping records. But it is best if both sides to a transaction have records, as a check on each other.

It is worth noting that other Atlanta-area bureaus such as this either require public officials to purchase tickets or require them to fill out request forms, on which they state both the reason for requesting the particular tickets and the name of the end users. These requests must be approved by the bureau's executive office.

This shows how important responsible procedures are. Such procedures ensure that the gift giving is fully transparent and is based on full information. Therefore, there is no appearance of impropriety unless, of course, the requests are always approved, no matter what information is provided or withheld. Without such a procedure, the Alpharetta bureau should not have given out any tickets at all.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

203-859-1959