How Not to Deal with Sunshine and Ethics Matters

I also write a blog relating to my town's government. One purpose for starting the blog, and its sister information website (the town's website is so limited, it doesn't even include town ordinances, the town's code of ethics, or the town charter), was to create a model that could be used by people in other towns who are faced with an administration that is closed and acts unethically. I will soon go into more detail about this, after the election next month.

Here is a blog entry I posted this week. It shows how not to deal with sunshine and ethics matters. The explanations employed by members of my town's Board of Finance are common, but they are rarely examined and criticized. Reporters usually do not understand what's wrong with these explanations, and even when they do, they don't have the space to examine and criticize them. This is one advantage of a blog, when used responsibly.

Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.

During last night's Board of Finance meeting, the majority Republicans twisted the most important concepts involved in the issues that are most important to me: transparency (open government) and ethics (conflicts of interest). Essentially, they taught a devil's civics course. (By "devil" I don't mean anything religious. I mean it in the sense of contrary, in this case not to the spirit of God, but the spirit of our laws and the spirit of our civics courses.)

The Board of Finance was meeting to discuss the draft report of the "forensic operations auditor" Kostin Ruffkess about the Community Services Department, the department over which Joseph Ierardi presided (he was also the chair of the Republican Town Committee and campaign manager to Kevin Kopetz).

The Days of Smoke-Filled Rooms Are Over
The principal reason the Board of Finance Republicans gave for going into an executive (that is, closed) session to discuss the report is that it would allow for a free and candid discussion. This is certainly true. Any discussion behind closed doors will be more free and candid than one in front of the public, especially at election time.

But the days of government in smoke-filled rooms are over. The principal reason that sunshine laws (laws requiring meetings to be open to the public and documents to be freely available) were passed is because government in smoke-filled rooms is not democratic. And in a participatory democracy like North Haven, with a legislature made up of the people of the town, government in smoke-filled rooms ' even without the smoke ' is especially unacceptable, and illegal.

Legislators all over the United States have decided that the ease of discussion is less important than the openness of discussion. This is a civics lesson that all of our elected officials should be giving us day in and day out. But our Board of Finance's Republican majority told us the opposite.

The Board's two Democrats, Michael Hallahan and Gerry Feinberg, did an excellent job of presenting the reasons why the discussion should have been held publicly, although they stuck more to the law than to the basic civics concepts.

They emphasized the balancing required by Connecticut's Freedom of Information Act, our state's sunshine law. The relevant section of the Act is Section 1-210(b)(1): "Nothing in the Freedom of Information Act shall be construed to require disclosure of: (1) Preliminary drafts or notes provided the public agency has determined that the public interest in withholding such documents clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure."

The Republican majority focused on the word "drafts" while the Democrats focused on the balancing test described in the phrase "provided a public agency has determined that the public interest in withholding such documents clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure." The word emphasized by the Democrats was "clearly."

The Presumption That Meetings Are Open
"Clearly outweighs" is the way the legislature stated the presumption that all government documents are public, as are all meetings to discuss them. Only when there is an overwhelming need to withhold a government document can such a document be kept secret and meetings about such documents be kept closed. For example, meetings about security issues and employee evaluations are generally closed.

In this case, the purpose for doing the forensic examination was to let the people of North Haven know what had happened, what had been stolen from them. It was all about regaining the public trust. Keeping documents and meetings secret undermines the public trust.

A Lesson in Sneakiness
The forensic report was not a "preliminary draft," the full phrase in the state law. The Republicans left out the word "preliminary" when they referred to the "draft" report, so that the report, which was certainly not preliminary, would seem to fit the exception to the open meeting rule.

This was a lesson in sneakiness that would corrupt a high school civics class, would start them thinking how to slyly misrepresent laws to favor their goal rather than honestly debating an issue and trying to decide what is right under the circumstances, what is in the public interest.

Making a Mockery of Our Political System
Democracy is not easy. It makes people uncomfortable. It means a lot of work. Nothing is easier than being ruled.

Majority votes do not make a democracy. What makes a democracy is openness and inclusion and respect for citizens and their rights and best interests.

The lesson the Board of Finance taught us was that all you need is a majority vote, and that if you have that, anything goes. You do not have to respect the spirit of the law, or even the law itself. You do what comes easiest. When in doubt, keep government closed.

These are horrible civics lessons. They distort our laws and political system and take advantage of people's lack of understanding of complex issues. Any teacher who taught these lessons in our high school would be fired.

Just before the vote on going into executive session, Gerry Feinberg said it would be a travesty, a mockery of the process to do this. He was ignored. But he was right. The Board of Finance made a mockery of our nation's commitment to open government.

Walking Out on a Conflict of Interest
The Board of Finance made even more of a mockery of our town's Code of Ethics. Just after the Board voted to go into a closed session, I rose and said what I had said at the most recent Board of Selectmen meeting:

"Because they have been implicated in the alleged conspiracy that is the intended subject of the forensic investigation report, both Kevin Kopetz and Jeffrey Donofrio have a conflict of interest with respect to discussions and decisions concerning that report.

"They were implicated by Joseph Ierardi when he was secretly taped by the Chief State's Attorney's office, as stated in his Arrest Warrant Affidavit. On p 7 of the Affidavit, Ierardi is quoted as saying, "they over there have been told my whole history on travel, Palmeri, Kevin, Jeff," that is, our finance director, first selectman, and town attorney knew about Ierardi's false travel reimbursement scheme, which consisted of Ierardi not traveling, but being paid travel expenses.

"What Ierardi said may not be true, but it is not in any way an admission of guilt for Mr. Kopetz or Mr. Donofrio to acknowledge that people reasonably believe that in advising, discussing, and making decisions regarding this report, they may be acting to protect themselves, because they too might be prosecuted or sued. Nor is it in any way an accusation for the Board of Finance to ask these two men to recuse themselves, that is, to withdraw from participation in any discussions or decisions regarding this report.

"The Code of Ethics says, in Sect. 3-3(A), "No officer... or official... shall have an interest, direct or indirect, which is incompatible with the proper discharge of his official duties in the public interest or would tend to impair his independent judgment or action in the performance of his official duties."

"The fact that these two men stand to lose money, position, reputation, and even potentially freedom if it turns out that Mr. Ierardi was telling the truth is definitely something that might impair their independent judgment and be incompatible with their acting in the public interest."

This is a serious issue. And how did the Board of Finance deal with it? Its Republican members walked out of the room as I spoke. The TV camera wasn't running, so they didn't even have to act like they cared.

Ethics Requires Leadership
During the public comments period, at the very end of the meeting (after waiting around for nearly three hours), I raised the issue again. This time I focused on the need for discussion of conflicts of interest matters. I said that the Ethics Review Committee, charged with recommending changes to our Code of Ethics, is having its first meeting on Thursday, and that the Board of Finance was sending the wrong message: that when one of their colleagues is involved, conflicts of interest questions need not even be discussed. I said that a code of ethics is meaningless without leaders who take ethical issues seriously and discuss them publicly.

The acting chair, Michael O. Peterson, said that Mr. Kopetz is an honorable man. I responded that I did not question his honor, that there is nothing wrong with having a conflict of interest. The only dishonorable thing is refusing to acknowledge a conflict of interest, and refusing to allow it to be discussed responsibly and professionally.

Once again, there was no discussion. Once again, the Board of Finance gave North Haven a devil's civics lesson: do not acknowledge your conflicts of interest, do not discuss them, and when a citizen raises a conflict of interest issue (even a government ethics professional), falsely accuse him of questioning the official's honor.

This is exactly the response that Joseph Ierardi made when I brought up the conflict of interest between his obligations as a department head and his obligations as the chair of the Republican Town Committee at a Board of Selectmen meeting. He accused me of questioning his integrity, and cut off any discussion of the issue.

No civics lesson could be worse than this.

Is it that the Board of Finance Republicans do not understand these issues? Or do they simply not care? Do they put themselves above our state's Freedom of Information Act and our town's Code of Ethics? Do they have disdain for the principles of democracy as practiced in our country?

The result of the meeting was better than the meeting itself. After giving its devil's civics lessons, the Board of Finance voted to make the forensic report (with "minor changes") available in PDF format some time on Wednesday, and to discuss the report publicly at its regular October 17 meeting.

I don't believe that there will be too much new in this report, since the accounting firm was given such a limited scope both in terms of departments (only one) and in terms of time period (I believe only three years). But it's a start. I will put the report up on the North Haven Info web site as soon as I can.