Aldermen’s Contempt for Ethics Updates Highlights Laziness
As the only outlet consistently covering the Board of Aldermen’s continuing avoidance of updated ethics rules that were put in the city charter with support of almost 70% of voters, some may be asking why we’re covering an issue being ignored by the other outlets. The reason is that the Mound City Messenger is dedicated to covering stories that matter. It matters whether your elected officials are following the law. It matters that our city has terrible practices relating to conflict-of-interest disclosures and recusal on votes that could financially benefit aldermen, their families, and their other employers. It’s not just the aldermen who avoid transparency in these matters. Our reporting has shown that unelected members of various boards and commissions are also spared almost any transparency in these matters. Across city government, it is clear that transparency is something our leaders think best avoided.
The importance of having the aldermen and commissioners file regular conflict-of-interest disclosures lies in the fact that piecemeal disclosure simply doesn’t allow the public to hold officials accountable. As is, the public is dependent on each individual taking the steps necessary to properly disclose conflicts and recuse themselves in real time. This means that it is impossible for the public actually to know if this is being done with any diligence. If an alderman or commissioner has an undisclosed conflict, it is unlikely that members of the public will be able to hold them accountable. How would we know? To do so would mean that the public somehow has intimate knowledge of the alders’ business dealings, along with the business dealings of their close relatives. That’s simply unrealistic. If the public is to have any real opportunity to make sure that these officials aren’t violating ethics rules, we must be given the tools to do so. That means disclosures should be proactive.
Similarly, it is alarming that members of the Board of Aldermen have declared that this kind of basic disclosure and a formalized recusal process would bring the city’s legislative body to a halt. Such statements beg the question: how many situations with conflicts are the members of the Board of Aldermen voting on? If the finances of board members are so intimately connected to beneficiaries of their work, then it would follow that they are probably not the people we should have making decisions on behalf of taxpayers. If current aldermen are regularly approving legislation that would enrich themselves or their family members, that is a grave ethical lapse. Voters should be given access to the necessary information to consider this as part of their election day decisions.
Another point worth raising is that the aldermen opposed to the changes continue to dodge any accountability related to their own inaction. Ald. Narayan’s complaints are the most confusing, as he is saying that the consanguinity standard already in use is too strident for the aldermen to follow. Again, the charter changes do not appear to expand the circle of relatives about which they are expected to disclose potential conflicts. It simply shifts the disclosure into being something more proactive that would increase the public’s ability to know if they were actually acting properly. Why would any elected official be opposed to this basic level of transparency? One has to wonder. If Ald. Narayan is willing to publicly state that he believes that the existing expectations are too burdensome; why should we assume that he is currently following them?
For Ald. Cohn’s objections to what he refers to as “drafting errors”, the question is equally simple: why haven’t you offered a fix and taken it to the voters? In fact, this holds true for every member of the Board of Aldermen who has a concern about improving ethical standards. If the aldermen agree with the overall idea behind the changes but believe that there were some technical drafting mistakes, then they have had three years to take steps to remedy the situation. Instead, they have remained inactive and impotent. They have instead simply pointed at legal challenges brought by other members of the board as the reason not to institute the rules. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from using their power as legislators to put a corrected charter change forward that addresses their concerns. In fact, the inaction of the Board of Aldermen appears to be willful. If fixing this was really important to them and, if they really did have well-intentioned concerns about the language in the charter change, they should have take proactive steps to move the issue forward. They have had years to do so.
We will continue covering this story because it is an important part of creating a more accountable Board of Aldermen and, in turn, city government. The importance of the issue is laid bare every election cycle, when local politicians wax poetic about their love for transparency and its role in an ethical and effective government. As we can see, that love appears to quickly dissipate in the days and weeks that follow. City voters are repeatedly promised a more transparent government, but, instead of delivering on that campaign promise, taxpayers are forced to continue living with a badly broken status quo. Many of these same elected officials decry the state GOP’s efforts to overrule the will of the voters, while they have tacitly been doing the same in this situation. It is a clear point of hypocrisy.
For local officials who wonder why so many people hold city government in low regard, they have only themselves to blame. The aldermen are not bystanders in the city’s governance processes. They are key actors. Even if the members of the Board of Aldermen don’t take their campaign promises about transparency seriously, it doesn’t mean we have to treat them as a joke. Voters have every right to ask elected officials to follow through on their promises. We hope our coverage assists in this effort.
We have filed numerous additional record requests related to this topic. After this week’s article, the President of the Board’s office has now confirmed a new legal challenge to the rules. We will do our best to keep city taxpayers informed of developments in this important and underreported story.
