Council Approval to Bring a Matter to a County Ethics Commission

Here's an odd ethics program rule. According to an article last week in the Advocate-Messenger, the Boyle County, KY ethics commission, which has jurisdiction over all the municipalities in the county, requires that a town council vote on whether a matter may be referred to the ethics commission.

In this instance, a Junction City council member complained that he had not received notice of multiple special meetings of the council. Instead of seeking a determination directly from the ethics commission, he had to raise the issue before the council. This may not have been an easy thing to do, because the mayor, who sits on the council, had been the one to call at least the most recent special meeting and, therefore, it was apparently his responsibility to make sure all members received timely notice. The requirement to get council approval can chill such requests, or politicize them.

As it turned out, three council members voted for referral and three voted against. Of those six members, three were newly elected (two of them voted for referral). The mayor was required to break the tie, and fortunately he voted for referral.

Of course, it is likely that the ethics commission has no jurisdiction over open meetings issues.

The one good thing about this rule is that the council or, I suppose, any board is required to discuss ethics issues whenever a member has a question or wants to file a complaint.

On the other hand, the mayor could have protected himself by voting against referral, and it would have looked bad for the council. However, one wonders why anyone else would vote against referral, except to protect the mayor or he had strong reason to believe that an open meeting issue such as this was outside the ethics commission's jurisdiction.

The city attorney was given the opportunity to say this, but apparently he chose not to. It's likely he didn't know himself. After all, the Boyle County ethics commission is mentioned nowhere on the county website, nor is the ethics code available there or on the Junction City site.

I like the idea of a county ethics program, but the argument in favor of this approach is that it provides more independence, totally removing local officials from involvement in the ethics program, and it provides an opportunity to make the ethics program more professional at a lower cost. This county ethics program gives local officials a veto over ethics issues being brought to the ethics commission, and it appears to be not professional at all, althought most likely at no monetary cost, only at the cost of public trust. This is not the way to do it.

It's likely that council approval was a compromise made in order for councils to give up jurisdiction over their conduct to a countywide body. It's an understandable solution, but not a good one.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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