County Attorney Conflicts and a Lack of Transparency in Maricopa County
Maricopa County (home of Phoenix) is doing an excellent job of showing
America's local governments what not to do. In April, I wrote about the conflict
that existed when the county attorney, after representing the county
board of supervisors as it put together plans and contracts for a new
county courthouse, decided to investigate the board's handling of these
plans and contracts. The outcry over this conflict led the county
attorney to turn the investigation over to another county.<br>
<br>
Now, according to <a href="http://www.abc15.com/content/news/investigators/story/Conflict-of-inter…; target="”_blank”">an article on the abc15.com website</a>, there appears to
be another attorney conflict with respect to the courthouse project.
The same law firm was hired by the county board of supervisors and by
the superior court that will be occupying the courthouse.<br>
<br>
To determine whether there is a conflict, one needs to know what the
firm was doing for the $800,000 it has been paid by the superior court.
But the superior court's not telling. Yes, it did respond to the TV
station's document request, but the documents consist primary of heavy
black lines, redacting nearly all information about what the law firm
actually did.<br>
<br>
When you have an apparent conflict and a lack of transparency, you can
safely assume that something is being hidden, and that what is being
hidden is probably not in the public interest. This is a good example
of why transparency is so central to government ethics, even though it
is not usually included in local government ethics codes.<br>
<br>
It's no surprise that another important part of government ethics is at
issue here: competitive bidding of contracts. The law firm's contract
with the superior court was not bid out, but was instead "piggybacked"
off contracts with the city of Phoenix and the state attorney general's
office. The fact that the wife of the law firm's lead attorney works
for the state attorney general's office just adds insult to injury.<br>
<br>
Adding all this together, we have a case of a law firm representing two
parties in an extremely controversial project, about which the public
can learn very little. Nor can the public learn much about what the law
firm is doing and, therefore, how serious a conflict there might be.
And in a project controversial for its high cost, the court's attorney
contract was not bid out.<br>
<br>
The appearance is that the county is hiding a great deal, and that the
public interest is secondary at best. The reality is just a bunch of
heavy black lines and documents kept under lock and key.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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