Problems with the Perfectly Ordinary
According to <a href="http://seguingazette.com/news/article_736afcb4-725f-11e3-86f9-0019bb296…; target="”_blank”">an
article yesterday in the Seguin (TX) <i>Gazette</i></a>, there will be a
perfectly ordinary local government ethics occurrence next Monday in
Seguin, a town of 25,000 outside San Antonio: the city's ethics
commission will meet in closed session to discuss a recently filed
ethics complaint.<br>
<br>
There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this. But there are two
serious problems here. One is that, according to the article, "the
Ethics Commission generally meets only when an ethics complaint has
been filed. The commission is required to hold an annual meeting in
June to elect officers." Actually, the commission meets "when
necessary to carry out its responsibilities." According to the city's website, the EC met only once each year from
2009 to 2012, all but once in June, to elect officers. In 2013, it doesn't appear to
have met at all. In other words, the EC clearly does not have many
responsibilities, and is not even being employed for the purpose of
enforcement.<br>
<br>
The second problem is that, according to the city attorney (who is
both the city's ethics officer and the EC's counsel and staff), he
cannot comment on the complaint because it doesn’t become public
information until after it has been acted upon by the EC.<br>
<br>
In short, the EC meets only to deal with complaints and, when it
meets, it does so without transparency. In all other respects, the
ethics program is run by the city attorney, even though he
has a personal, professional, political, and/or superior-subordinate
relationship with most of the individuals to whom he provides ethics advice. In other words, he is conflicted with respect to, and appears
biased toward or against, these individuals, and yet is expected to do, and appear to be doing, what is best for the community.<br>
<br>
This is what happens in small cities and counties across the
country. Therefore, one might assume that it is a best practice,
that thousands of cities and counties have agreed that, of
all the ways they could set up an ethics program, this is the one
that is best for their community.<br>
<br>
Only this is not what has happened. Few of these local governments
have considered a range of choices. And probably none of them has
made, and then rejected, a list of the possible activities an EC may
participate in, such as those in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/book-excerpt-2-checklist-ethics-commi…; target="”_blank”">City
Ethics' Checklist of Ethics Commission Activities</a>.<br>
<br>
Nor have many of these governments openly debated the appropriate
role of the city or county attorney in an ethics program, and the
advantages, for everyone involved, of having the EC select an ethics
officer (a part-time contractor in small cities and counties) who
has no relationship with those to whom she would provide ethics
advice, who clearly represents the community's rather than officials' interests.<br>
<br>
In local government ethics, what appears totally ordinary is simply
what requires the least bother, the least cost, the
least work from EC members, and the least ethics oversight by the
community. In other words, what appears to be perfectly ordinary is actually an ethics
program that has almost none of the elements of an effective ethics
program.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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