Ethical is as ethical does

Wasilla City Council’s decision to conduct a truly independent investigation into how city administration has behaved regarding its relationship with a developer is a good one.

While it’s never a good circumstance when a city’s own council is prompted by the behavior of administrators to investigate their actions, we applaud this group for having the fortitude and honesty to recognize it’s warranted here.

Mayor Dianne M. Keller says she knows what’s ethical and what isn’t, which makes her leadership and actions in the city’s dealings with Meritage Development Corp. LLC more disturbing. It means one of three things:

1. The mayor consciously threatened to destroy established local businesses to benefit a larger development knowing it was unethical for her to do so.

2. The mayor’s definition of ethics is very different from members of council and perhaps city residents.

3. The mayor truly cannot distinguish between ethical and non-ethical behavior.

Keller says whether her ethics should be under the microscope is “a matter of perspective” and asks “if there are no ethics standards set, whose standards do you use?”

This is the same argument used by some defending Major League Baseball players who have been accused of taking performance-enhancing substances. Because Major League Baseball didn’t specifically ban the taking of steroids and other substances when the players took them doesn’t make their decisions to do so ethical. Because Wasilla may not have a specific ethics code in place doesn’t mean the mayor or staff are exempt from behaving in an ethical, transparent and above-board manner.

Wasilla is growing and becoming more important as a retail and residential hub of Southcentral Alaska. Creekside won’t be the last large development proposal the city receives, so how it deals with Meritage now sets a precedent for future developers. If the city actively helps this developer get what it wants by taking property from others and ruining their businesses, the next developer will want the same.

It’s regrettable city council has to spend its time and resources performing an independent investigation, but it would be disastrous at this point not to. There are legitimate questions — hard questions — that need to be answered by a probe:

• Why did the mayor feel it was the city’s place to send out a letter threatening to take land if Six Robblees’ and the Windbreak Café didn’t sell to Meritage?

• What happened in May when the mayor and another city staffer visited Las Vegas and met with Meritage developers? Who paid for the trip and what was its purpose?

• Why was a developer, Meritage, the only entity invited to apply for up to $800,000 in community block grant funding, money intended to aid those with low- to moderate-incomes?

• How far did the city go to accommodate Meritage and did city staff spend time and resources doing work traditionally done by developers?

• If the city acted improperly or unethically, what was the motivation for doing so?

• Are city policies and procedures adequate to handle these situations in the future?

While those wanting to perform the probe have until Feb. 11 to apply to the council, council members should take this time to draft investigation guidelines that call for a thorough, deep probe that includes all relevant observations and recommendations.

“You either have ethics or you don’t,” Keller says. True enough. With the mayor and city council squaring off over Meritage, we’ll know soon enough who does and doesn’t in Wasilla city politics.