A Miscellany
<b>More Costs of Not Having an Ethics Program</b><br>
Local officials are always complaining about the cost of an ethics
program, but not having an ethics program can be expensive and
extremely disruptive, and seem downright unfair.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/miscellany-7" target="”_blank”">Back in
November, I wrote</a> about a situation where the mayor of Nanaimo,
B.C. rescinded the issuance of a variance for a sign, due to a council
member's conflict. According to <a href="http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/nanaimonewsbulletin…; target="”_blank”">an
article
in
the
Nanaimo <i>News Bulletin</i></a> yesterday, the city spent
$2,800 on a lawyer's report confirming that the council member voted
with a conflict, and it reimbursed the council member $10,000 for a
lawyer's opinion that he was not in conflict. Did anyone consider
getting a cheaper opinion from a government ethics professional?<br>
<br>
The mayor wanted to take the matter to the province's supreme court
instead, but the council didn't want to do that. That would have been
even more expensive.<br>
<br>
The punch line of the story is that the council considered the two
opinions, and would not reveal them to the public that had paid for
them. If this doesn't get the citizens of Nanaimo demanding a local
ethics program, nothing will.<br>
<br>
<b>An Alderwoman's Pay-to-Play Schemes</b><br>
<a href="http://lawoftheland.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/7th-circuit-court-of-appea…; target="”_blank”">A
Law
of the Land Blog post on Monday</a> details a number of ways in
which an alderwoman and her housing coordinator got property owners to
pay in order to get the alderwoman's support for permits and zoning
changes. She even got a realtor to help her with a fraudulent
transaction, which didn't happen, leaving the realtor holding the bag.
Ugly stuff.<br>
<br>
<b>The Wastefulness and Questionableness of Multiple Ethics Programs</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11043/1124967-53.stm" target="”_blank”">an article
in Saturday's Pittsburgh <i>Post-Gazette</i></a>, the <a href="http://www.pgh2o.com/index.htm" target="”_blank”">Pittsburgh Water and Sewer
Authority</a> dropped an investigation into its executive director's
alleged conflicts of interest, because he resigned. It felt that it would
be more useful to reform the authority's contracting procedures, impose
checks and balances on future executive directors, and institute ethics
training.<br>
<br>
It often is better to look to the future, but it is equally important
to know what has been happening in the past. One reason is to prevent
it from happening again. A second reason is to let the public know how
bad (or not so bad) things were, so that moving on does not look like
covering up. Nothing is more harmful to the public trust than a
cover-up. And that is what this looks like. Even if there are no penalties, it's important to know what was important enough to investigate and to resign.<br>
<br>
One reason I say it looks like a coverup is that the city comptroller did <a href="http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/co/assets/10-pa_PWSA.pdf" target="”_blank”">a
performance audit of the authority</a> as recently as last August, recommending
changes to contracting procedures and the like. If the comptroller's
recommendations had not been followed, or fell far short of what the
authority's board now feels they should have been, the public should be told
why. Repeating the audit six months later seems a waste of time and money.<br>
<br>
Another issue here is whether each agency and authority should have to
separately handle contracting procedures, ethics rules, and ethics
training. This seems a way to ensure incompetence and waste.
If the authority feels the city's procedures, rules, and training are
insufficient, it should demand ethics reform for the city government as
a whole. If the city's procedures, rules, and training are superior to
the authority's, the authority should jump on board.<br>
<br>
It is wasteful to have many ethics programs in one government. It also
makes it more likely that the programs will be poorly crafted. The only
reason to have many programs is to protect the fiefdoms that are so often established in agencies and authorities. The goal of multiple programs is often to keep ethics programs under
each agency and authority's control. This is hardly a good argument
for multiple ethics programs.<br>
<br>
<b>Denial and Counterattack Are Not Ways to Deal Responsibly with a
Conflict</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Ramos-quits-WellMed-Charita…; target="”_blank”">an
article
last week in the San Antonio <i>Express-News</i></a>, a San Antonio
council member has resigned from her job with the nonprofit arm of a
medical management company that has a contract with the city, after an
ethics complaint was filed against her by the sister of her opponent in
a council race. Instead of continuing with the responsible handling
of her conflict, however, she lashed out with accusations of mudslinging and
exploitation of the news media.<br>
<br>
It is a dirty thing for a candidate to do (made even worse by the
candidate's call
for the council member to temporarily leave her seat), but the council
member could have used the accusation to her advantage, and taught her
city an ethics lesson at the same time, by acknowledging that she
shouldn't have taken the job, which, the complaint says, included
lobbying her fellow council members on behalf of her employer.<br>
<br>
The council member says that she never voted on anything that involved
the company, but a conflict requires an official to refrain from
participation in anything having to do with the company's relationship
with the government. If she did participate in any way, she should have
acknowledged that she did not realize this was wrong, and that it would
not continue. Then she could settle the matter, and it would be over
almost as soon as it started. Denial and counterattack don't help
anyone.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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