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Case Study of the Day
According to an article in today's Louisville Courier-Journal, there is a dispute in Jeffersonville, Kentucky that is worth taking a look at.
The mayor has accused the city board of ethics' attorney of having a conflict of interest and is urging that he be fired. The conflict involves support for the another mayoral candidate (in the primary).
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The evidence for that support consists of the fact that the mayoral candidate has used the attorney's wife's bulk mailing permit. The attorney's wife is the city's clerk treasurer and is running unopposed in the primary. She says that she sells the use of her campaign's mailing permit to various candidates, so that their use involves no show of support.
The board of ethics' first case involved the mayor. It ruled that the mayor had improperly solicited city employees in the form of an invitation to a campaign fundraiser, and it ordered the mayor to return campaign donations from nine city employees. The mayor insists that he did not send invitations to employees and refuses to return the donations. He also refuses to cooperate with the board due to its attorney's alleged conflict. But he did return $100 of a $200 contribution from a firm that does business with the city, as ordered by the board of ethics.
What should the attorney do? Should the spouse of a city official serve in such a position in the first place? Does this create an appearance of favoritism and lend itself to politicizing the board's decisions? The attorney should consider resigning for this reason, not because of what the mayor accused him of.
What should the mayor do? It appears that his accusation was wrong. It also appears that he is using this as an excuse not to cooperate with the board of ethics. Should a city official ever ignore the decisions of an ethics board, without appealing that decision? The mayor should apologize for politicizing the ethics process and should immediately return the donations.
What should the board of ethics do? When you strip away the attorney's alleged conflict and the mayor's denial of wrongdoing (which the board apparently rejected), all that's left is a raw show of power on the mayor's part. Power is one thing that ethics boards are not capable of dealing with and, therefore, it is often what politicians fall back on when confronted with a decision they do not like. Is there anything that can be done about this?
If the attorney does not want to resign, one compromise might be for the board to decide that its attorney should not be or have a close family member who is a city official. On this basis, it could select another attorney, without giving in to the mayor's accusations. This would leave the parties to focus on the decision, and force the mayor to oppose it rather than the board's attorney.
The board decided to ask the public to attend its meetings 'to judge for yourself as to whether or not we are acting in the best interest of citizens of this community.' This is a good idea, but there might not be another interesting matter for some time. Whatever happens, the board needs to stand tough and insist on having its decisions respected by city officials. And city officials should support it on this. Otherwise, they will be undermining the city's attempt to have a more ethical environment. They should then be called on the floor for this. It's not something any politician wants at election time.
- Robert Wechsler's blog
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