Ethics board vs. hearing officer?

On Tuesday, June 7 the assembly will hold a public hearing on Ordinance No.11-060, which proposes the repeal of several sections of the Borough Ethics Code, MSB. 2.70, and reassigns them to an administrative hearing officer. What it really means is this proposal eliminates the Ethics Board and assigns all ethics cases to a single administrative hearing officer.

The Ethics Board is comprised of five members, appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the assembly. The Administrative Hearing Officer Board also has five members appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the assembly. This board consists of attorneys only and currently has three vacancies, whereas the Ethics Board has no vacancies. Another distinction is the members of the Ethics Board are all volunteers, whereas the members of the hearing board are all attorneys paid by the hour.

Under the current ethics code, when a complaint is filed with the Ethics Board, it is heard by five — or at least a quorum of three — unbiased members. If this provision is repealed and placed under the jurisdiction of the Administrative Hearing Officers Board, the clerk appoints one officer from the list of members to hear the complaint. This officer acts as the judge, jury and executioner. Where would his loyalty lie if a complaint were filed against an elected official who pays his salary?

Also proposed is changing the definition of “substantial financial interest,” more commonly known as personal benefit, from the current amount of $50 to $5,000 per year. In other words, each and every assembly member would be allowed to receive up to $5,000 per year and not be in violation of any conflict regulations. The last time I checked, members of the Legislature have a ceiling of $250.

An interesting change is the amendment to replace five years with one year to file a complaint of potential wrongdoing by an official. We all know it sometimes takes two or three years to discover criminal action taken by an official who resigned, retired or was dismissed.

The current Code 2.70 was rewritten in the early 1990s with the then borough attorney and the then city of Palmer attorney as full-time members. It was considered an excellent document and was used by two other municipalities as a basis for their ethics codes. Sure, it needed to be updated, but not necessarily a full rewrite.

Within the last few years, assemblies have written and adopted their own rules, which they consider to be in the best interest of the borough. But the point is to adopt rules and regulations that are in the best interest of the public.

A few of the self-serving adoptions are:

1. The increase in per diem benefit from $10 to $20.

2. Include the annual per diem of $600 per month into their monthly salary in order to increase their retirement benefits.

3. The assembly acted as the board for reapportion instead of appointing a public board, as was the usual procedure.

And now the assembly wants to write its own ethics code? Where do we stop? Elected officials should represent their constituents. I expect that of the people I vote for and so should you.

Please call your assemblyperson and ask him/her to pull this ordinance off the agenda and deal with it as a whole package of adopting the rewrite. There is no logical reason to piecemeal changes when the existing ethics update is already scheduled for August.

Jay Nolfi

Big Lake