{"id":30399,"date":"2011-06-30T12:11:56","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T18:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=30399"},"modified":"2011-06-30T12:13:20","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T18:13:20","slug":"valid-ethics-complaints-need-to-be-heard-in-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/06\/valid-ethics-complaints-need-to-be-heard-in-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Valid ethics complaints need to be heard in public"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Wayne Johnson<\/p><\/div>\n

No one is perfect. The devil is in the details. No good deed goes unpunished\u2026 Every saying a clich\u00e9 and every saying accurately describes Bernalillo County\u2019s ethics ordinance. The ordinance was, I believe, an honest attempt to protect the public from both the perception and reality of misbehavior by county employees and elected officials. It created a set of standards and a process for enforcing those standards.<\/p>\n

Allegations against any county employee or elected official can be made through a sworn complaint or anonymously. A web portal was set up to collect anonymous complaints and, not surprisingly, the county\u2019s web portal quickly became the favorite way to file a complaint.<\/p>\n

No one is perfect<\/h3>\n

In order to protect employees and officials from frivolous complaints, anonymous complaints are reviewed by an independent investigator to determine the validity of the allegation and the applicability of the ordinance. Should facts supporting a violation be found, the ordinance requires that the internal audit contractor \u201cprepare the sworn complaint and present its investigation to the Ethics Board.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ordinance clearly intends that a full board of five members be present to hear complaints \u2013 even providing for a replacement appointee where a member has a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

To date, there have been three cases where the internal audit contractor found facts that support a violation of the county\u2019s ethics ordinance. Would it surprise you that one of the complaints has been dismissed despite the fact that the full ethics board hasn\u2019t heard a case in well over a decade? It certainly surprised me. In fact, I was shocked!<\/p>\n

The devil is in the details<\/h3>\n

A constituent of mine recently quipped, \u201cIs it any surprise that they found a way around the ordinance when the ordinance itself was taken from Cook County Illinois?\u201d In point of fact, the shortcut to dismissal wasn\u2019t found in Chicago, but right here in the City of Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

At the last full meeting of the ethics board in October of 2010, the county attorney presented the board with a set of rules and regulations that included language from the City of Albuquerque Ethics Board creating a \u201creview committee\u201d of three members. The \u201creview committee\u201d \u2013 made up of ethics board members appointed by the ethics board chair \u2013 has the authority to summarily dismiss complaints in secret prior to a public hearing. That\u2019s how a case that was never heard by the ethics board and never heard by the public was dismissed.<\/p>\n

At the time the dismissed case was \u201creviewed\u201d by the \u201creview committee,\u201d there were two members of the ethics board still waiting to be confirmed and one of the three \u201creview committee\u201d members was an appointee of the accused. County Attorney Jeff Landers, in a memo dated Jan. 18, encouraged the three remaining members to \u201creview\u201d the case in spite of the fact that the board was missing two members. Worse, he seemingly encouraged dismissal, stating \u201c(a)s you are aware, the review committee is able to review the Complaint and determine whether it believes that the matter should be dismissed without hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can the public trust a ruling from a committee where one of three members was appointed by the accused, the decision was made in secret, and the county attorney appears to be encouraging dismissal without a public hearing?<\/p>\n

The ethics ordinance created a two-step process where an independent investigator reviews a case to determine its merits, then presents the case to the full ethics board. It does not include a \u201creview committee,\u201d and does not permit hearings by less than the full board. The \u201creview committee\u201d process is a disservice to and perhaps even a deception of the public, not to mention the pall it casts over the accused who is denied the opportunity of a public exoneration.<\/p>\n

No good deed goes unpunished<\/h3>\n

The three complaints found to have merit, including the \u201cdismissed\u201d complaint, have all been against Commission Chair and Ethics Ordinance champion Maggie Hart Stebbins. It\u2019s the irony of ethics ordinances that they can be used unethically and perhaps that is the case here. However, we will never know for sure in at least one case because that case has been dismissed in secret by a \u201creview committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

The people of Bernalillo County deserve open, transparent and ethical government. There can be no shortcuts to dismissal and no short-circuiting of the original process created by the commission. Valid complaints need to be heard in public, not dismissed behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s our responsibility as elected officials to restore and maintain the trust in county government. Obviously, we still have a long way to go.<\/p>\n

Johnson<\/a> is the Bernalillo County commissioner representing District 5.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The people of Bernalillo County deserve open, transparent and ethical government. Valid ethics complaints need to be heard in public, not dismissed in secret.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2267,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[157,109],"class_list":["post-30399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-bernalillo-county","tag-ethics-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}