Involving Criminal Authorities Extends the Run of an Ethics Drama

According to an article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune this week, the lame-duck mayor of Northfield, MN, home of Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges, has been charged with five counts of misconduct by a public official and two counts of conflict of interest under the town's ethics code (there is no ethics commission; instead, violations are misdemeanors, which are prosecuted, in this case by the county attorney's office).

The principal actions of the mayor, a weak mayor in a council-manager form, involved pushing the town manager to favor the mayor's property for the placement of a town liquor store, failing to disclose his interest, and withholding a study that showed that his property was the least financially viable of those being considered. The council asked the mayor to step down last December, after an investigator produced his findings, but he refused. This fall, the mayor came in sixth out of seven in the mayoral primary.

Clearly, the people of Northfield are far ahead of the town's ethics code. To pay for a special investigation, followed nearly a year later by criminal charges, when an ethics commission could have had this matter dealt with a year ago is not only a waste of time and money, but also undermines people's trust in government. The new mayor and council should get to work on a new ethics code that provides for an ethics commission with teeth, rather than depending on county attorneys who have better things to do, as well as possible relationships with mayors and town managers involved in such matters.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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