No one is perfect. The devil is in the details. No good deed goes unpunished.
These statements are all cliché, but every one accurately describes Bernalillo County’s Ethics Ordinance. The ordinance was — I believe — an honest attempt to protect the public from the perception and reality of county employees’ and elected officials’ misbehavior.
It created a set of standards and a process for enforcing those standards. Allegations against a county employee or elected official can be made through a sworn complaint or anonymously. A web portal collects anonymous complaints, and not surprisingly, the county’s web portal became the favorite way to file a complaint.
No one is perfect
In order to protect employees and officials from frivolous complaints, an independent investigator reviews anonymous complaints to determine the validity of the allegation and the applicability of the ordinance.
Should facts be found supporting a violation, the ordinance requires that the Internal Audit contractor “prepare the sworn complaint and present its investigation to the Ethics Board.”
The ordinance clearly intends that a full five-member board hear complaints, even providing for a replacement appointee when a member has a conflict of interest. To date, the Internal Audit contractor has in three cases found facts that supported a violation of the county’s Ethics Ordinance. Would it surprise you to learn that one of the complaints has been dismissed despite that the full Ethics Board hasn’t heard a case in more than a decade?
It certainly surprised me. In fact, I was shocked!
The devil is in the details
One of my constituents recently said, “Is it any surprise that they found a way around the ordinance when the ordinance itself was taken from Cook County, Ill.?” In point of fact, the shortcut to dismissal wasn’t found in Chicago, but in the City of Albuquerque. At the last Ethics Board full meeting in October 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 three-member “review committee.”
The “review committee” — comprised of Ethics Board members appointed by the Ethics Board chair — has the authority to summarily dismiss complaints in secret before a public hearing.
That’s how a case was dismissed before the Ethics Board or public could hear it.
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When the case was “reviewed” by the “review committee,” two members of the Ethics Board were waiting to be confirmed, and one member was appointed by the accused. County Attorney Jeff Landers in a Jan. 18 memo encouraged the three remaining members to “review” the case even though the board was missing two members.
Worse, he seemingly encouraged dismissal stating, “(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.” How can the public trust a committee ruling when one of the members is appointed by the accused, the decision was made in secret and the county attorney appears to encourage dismissal without a public hearing?
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 “review committee” and does not permit hearings by less than the full board.
The “review committee” process is disingenuous and perhaps deceives the public — not to mention the pall it casts over the accused who is denied the opportunity for public exoneration.
No good deed goes unpunished
The three complaints found to have merit, including the “dismissed” complaint, have all been against commission chair and Ethics Ordinance champion Maggie Hart Stebbins.
It’s 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 secretly dismissed by a “review committee.”
The people of Bernalillo County deserve open, transparent and ethical government. There can be no shortcuts to dismissal and no short-circuiting the process created by the commission. Valid complaints need to be heard in public, not dismissed behind closed doors.
Wayne Johnson is the Bernalillo County commissioner.
