JSOnline’s DayWatch is reporting the county board supervisors are balking at an ethics package that would bring the county ethics enforcement more in line with enforcement elsewhere in the state. The excuses are pretty woeful, even for the Board, so let’s start fisking:
Supervisor Elizabeth Coggs-Jones said the plan fostered a presumption of guilt any time someone filed an ethics complaint against county officials.
Could it be that most times, county officials are guilty of ethics violations? Say, is it just me, or does anybody else note the irony of who is bitching here?
She and others questioned the idea of having the district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit conduct the first reviews of complaints, something that District Attorney John Chisholm suggested as a way to avoid having two simultaneous probes – one by the Ethics Board and another by the DA.
After all, there’s more taxpayer money to be spent in a 2-step investigation.
Under the proposed revisions, all complaints would be kept confidential, with nothing made public unless there was a finding of wrongdoing. That follows the state ethics system and many other municipal ethics codes, supervisors were told. But it changes current county practice in which ethics complaints are immediately made public.
If the secrecy provision were enacted, ethics complaints would likely be publicized by the complainants or otherwise leaked, supervisors said.
Supervisor Lynne De Bruin said political opponents could use the code as a weapon against supervisors, disclosing the existence of an ethics complaint they or a supporter had filed.
Again, hiding something? Worried about not being able to immediately retaliate against those that note the odor?
They also objected to a new standard that would forbid county officials from accepting “anything of value” that could be construed to compromise their ability to act fairly on county business.
Hell, they can’t possibly survive on a generous full-time salary plus Rolls Royce benefits for part-time work </sarcasm>.
