What's Wrong with This Picture?
Robert Wechsler
The mayor of a city of 46,000 people announces that the city would
change its policy requiring annexation to obtain water and sewer
service, and then negotiates an agreement with a developer to provide
him with utilities. In the middle of the negotiations, the developer
gives the mayor's campaign a $10,000 contribution. An ethics
complaint is filed with the state ethics commission and, according to an
article in yesterday's Newark (OH) Advocate, the complaint is dismissed
due to insufficient evidence of an ethics violation.
The former mayor, now president of the city council, says, “Everything I did was legal and reported openly. I’m an honest human being.”
What's wrong with this picture is that $10,000 contribution. It was legal, certainly, but how could anyone perceive such a large contribution in such a small city to be anything but a payoff?
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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The former mayor, now president of the city council, says, “Everything I did was legal and reported openly. I’m an honest human being.”
What's wrong with this picture is that $10,000 contribution. It was legal, certainly, but how could anyone perceive such a large contribution in such a small city to be anything but a payoff?
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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