The Image Consultant's Role in Local Government Ethics
Things have changed. It used to be that the first thing you did when
you found out the local ethics commission was investigating you was
hire a lawyer (which is itself a change from the days when you found
out you were being investigated by the D.A. and handed him a bribe).<br>
<br>
In this era of the image and the consultant, the truly with-it (if that
term is still in use) government official turns to the image
consultant. And that is what Baltimore's <a href="http://www.bcerssite.org/" target="”_blank”">Employees' Retirement System</a>
board has done, according to <a href="http://investigativevoice.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article…; target="”_blank”">an
Investigative Voice post on Sunday</a>.<br>
<br>
The firm apparently hired is <a href="http://www.levick.com/" target="”_blank”">Levick
Strategic Communications</a>, which primarily works to control the
media coverage and preserve the reputation of companies and brands, but
also works for public officials, who also have reputations, and are
sometimes brands in their own right.<br>
<br>
Here's one of the firm's pitches:<ul>
Regulatory or congressional investigations. A defective product.
An illegal or embarrassing act by a bad actor. An adversary trying to
use the media for leverage. Sometimes the odds are against you. The
roles in the drama have already been cast and you’re set up as the bad
actor.<br>
<br>
At such moments, you need to control events. You need to get out of
the news.</ul>
In the corporate world, hiring such a company is old news. But in local
government ethics, it's new news. As is the question of who's paying
for the firm's services. Is it not a conflict of interest for
individuals to vote together to use public funds to protect their
personal reputations?<br>
<br>
Levick is not a little boutique firm that's found a new sort of niche.
It consists of high-powered former journalists and corporate communications
executives and, according to the <a href="http://www.levick.com/resources/team/robinson.php" target="”_blank”">biography of
one of the senior VPs, Michael Robinson</a>, its Anti-corruption and
Good Governance practice is "a fully integrated component of the
PricewaterhouseCoopers Anti-corruption Center of Excellence."<br>
<br>
But from the sound of their pitches, the work they do is anti-anti-corruption, and protection of bad governance.<br>
<br>
Here's an excerpt from the <a href="http://www.levick.com/resources/team/levick.php" target="”_blank”">biography of
the firm's president and CEO, Richard S. Levick</a>:<ul>
On a daily basis, Mr. Levick’s prestigious team of professionals
spearheads many of the world’s highest-profile campaigns – including
Guantanamo Bay; the Catholic Church; the Wall Street crisis; the
largest data security breach in history; front-page product recalls;
the merger of global financial markets; bet-the-company regulatory
actions; and some of the most important public affairs matters arising
out of the Middle East.</ul>
Here's another nice quotation, this time from Levick's <a href="http://www.levick.com/practice_areas/anti-corruption-compliance/" target="”_blank”">Anti-Corruption
and Compliance page</a>:<ul>
As veterans of the DOJ, SEC, and NGOs such as Transparency
International, Levick’s senior counselors understand how these
formidable institutions utilize the media spotlight to build a case in
the Court of Public Opinion – and, more important, how companies can
best shape the story when allegations of bribery or corruption arise.</ul>
This all seems like overkill in the decidedly unformidable realm of local
government ethics. But why shouldn't a pension trustee's reputation be
worth as much Wall Street's or the Catholic Church's?<br>
<br>
The big question remains, Who is going to pay to protect their
reputations from the big, bad Baltimore ethics board? The pension
board's minutes do not appear to be available online, and the
Investigative Voice has apparently not found out the answer to the
question, either.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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