EC Transparency Should Be a High Priority

My <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/using-confidentiality-smokescreen&quot; target="”_blank”">most
recent blog post</a> involved ethics commission confidentiality.
This one involves the other side of the coin:  ethics
commission transparency.<br>
<br>
I often send blog posts to officials I write about, hoping that they
will enter into dialogue about the issue, privately or online, or at
least learn something from what I've written. Most local government
officials now make their e-mail addresses available online. But,
sadly, most local government ethics commission members and even
their staff do not.<br>
<br>

When I looked for the e-mail address of the executive director of
New York State's ethics commission, I could not find the e-mail
address of any staff member. There was only one general e-mail
address. So I called the EC's phone number and asked to speak with a
woman whose name appeared on a recent press release. I was asked who
I was and what it was about, and after being putting on hold, I was not let through. Clearly, letting staff know about a
professionally-oriented blog post involving the commission didn't rate a conversation even with
a press contact.<br>
<br>
As I wrote in my new book, <i><a href="http://www.cityethics.org/ethics%20book&quot; target="”_blank”">Local Government
Ethics Programs</a></i>, "nothing says openness like a
full list of staff names, positions, and contact info. ... It should
be possible to call or e-mail staff members and, where
there is no staff, the commission chair or some other
representative. This
contact information should either be on the home page (usually at
the top or
the bottom, or in a box toward the top) or, where there are multiple
staff
members, on a “Contact Us” page that is clearly linked to on the
home page and
all other relevant pages (see the <a href="http://www.phila.gov/ethicsboard/contact.html&quot; target="”_blank”">Philadelphia
“Contact Us” page</a> for a rare
example of providing all staff members’ e-mail addresses)."<br>
<br>
Ethics commission members and staff need to be constantly reminded
that transparency is one of the three areas of government ethics
(along with conflicts and campaign finance). A lack of transparency
undermines the public's trust. And the last thing an ethics
commission wants is for the public to think the ethics program is
secret and closed to public input.<br>
<br>
Ethics commissions should lead the way on transparency and accessibility. Transparency
is not limited to responding to requests for public information. It
also includes making public information available online and making
it user-friendly. Ethics commissions may be overwhelmed with work,
but transparency should be given a high priority.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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