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Examining some officials’ ethics We have been led to believe that ethics laws can tame and civilize the sometimes brutal and inattentive power of government. However, I would charge that ethics laws are nothing but black ink on white paper unless we have public officials who actually commit themselves to ethical decision-making. Political ethics is a hotly debated and very public topic. Both our congressional Democrats and Republicans have done a magnificent job of proving to the American people it is not enough to know what is good, but to be ethical you must act for the good. Indeed, it is nauseating to witness the dilution of personal responsibility within the hearts of our elected officials and, in many ways, their disregard of the notion of the government official having a moral duty to consider the citizenry he represents prior to taking action. I have received many complaints about Mayor Harold Logsdon’s promises to roll back taxes and his actual practice of continuously raising taxes and fees as being unethical. However much you dislike the 180-degree ambush from the mayor, it is not unethical to change your mind and proceed in a contradictory course once elected. Please keep in mind Mayor Logsdon suffers from his record high taxes and fees just as much as we do. The area where Mayor Logsdon does shatter the glass wall of ethical consistency was his recent trip to China. In this instance, we have an elected official who recently gave substantial tax breaks to the Chinese Sany Corp and then received an expensive week-long stay in China, courtesy of the same corporation, which included lodging, meals, entertainment and tours of the Chinese countryside such as Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, a tour of the Olympic Stadiums, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Shanghai Pearl Tower. After that, the mayor arrived home just in time for a crucial vote on three zoning variances for, you guessed it, the very same Sany Corp. In fact, according to Citizen reporter John Munford’s article, “[The mayor] didn’t feel compelled to recuse himself from voting on the buffer variance or any future request from Sany.” Wonder how he will vote? Yes, indeed, the mayor hit an ethical abuse grand slam. (City Code, Sec. 62-76, “Gifts and favors. (a) No official or employee shall accept any gift, loan, reward, favor or services that may reasonably tend to improperly influence him or her in the discharge of their official duties. This limitation is not intended to prohibit the acceptance of articles of negligible value, which are distributed generally, nor to prohibit officials or employees from accepting loans from regular lending institutions. It is particularly important that employees and officials guard against relationships, which might be construed as, or give the appearance of favoritism, coercion, unfair advantage or collusion. (O.C.G.A. § 16-10-2). Also see Sec. 62-75. Impartiality)). Nevertheless, had the city paid all of the mayor’s expenses, I would not be complaining about an unsightly ethical violation, but citing instead his continued poor judgment on use of taxpayer funds. I was disappointed to see County Commission Chairman Jack Smith wrapped up in the Sany gift-away controversy too. And interestingly enough, it was Chairman Smith who, this past July, stated in a brash open letter, “Mr. [Commissioner] Maxwell is an attorney, and I am a certified public accountant; we find it laughable that this part-time public service position could remotely tempt us to jeopardize the very oaths and stringent requirements of office we took when we joined our respective professions ... like Commissioner Maxwell and myself, neither would jeopardize their core beliefs, especially when dealing with their home, the place they have families, the place they intend to live for many years to come. Any comments to the contrary made by power-hungry individuals are not only false, misleading and contemptible ...” It was Commissioner Maxwell who, as a sitting judge for the Municipal Court of Peachtree City, represented a client before his own court in order to obtain a sweet plea deal for his friend. This is another whopping ethics predicament (City Code Sec. 62-80. Representation, etc.). Luckily, for the integrity of the judicial system, the city solicitor refused to cooperate with the deed and ruined Commissioner Maxwell’s indiscretion. Both Chairman Smith and Commissioner Maxwell were also implicated in the infamous official act of entering into a closed meeting under false pretenses. Instead of offering a public apology on the matter, they altered the official record of the event (the cover-up was later exposed on www.YouTube.com). Fayette’s own state superintendent of schools, Kathy Cox, breeched ethical boundaries by publicly endorsing the passage of the upcoming school SPLOST referendum on an official visit to one of our public schools. Speaking of the SPLOST, I am being told the Fayette County Board of Education (FCBOE) is pressuring school principals to request that their PTO leaders sell the official FCBOE SPLOST presentation to parents. According to the ethics statues, they are all treading on thin legal ice. A lot of local voters, especially senior citizens, are concerned about the deceptive practice used by FCBOE members of not saying a single public word about the SPLOST referendum until after they had won their primary election races in July. In fact, a lot of people who know very little about what they are talking about in regards to the SPLOST are passing along talking points provided by FCBOE Member Janet Smola. It was board member Smola who orchestrated the secretive movement for candidates not to answer reasonable questions offered by The Citizen prior to the July primary so as to keep the public in the dark on the issue of significant tax increases. Their aim was no promises and no accountability. (Where was the outrage from the faint-hearted local Republican and Democratic parties about these tactics?) The unfortunate souls doing the bidding of board member Smola are in for a rude awakening. After all, when the FCBOE hauls out their lawyer who imposes a threatening $2,000 fee on a local mom to view “public” documents related to the proposed SPLOST, you had better believe there is some serious scheming going on behind the scenes. We do not need a Board of Education with dirty hands coming to the people asking for a significant tax increase for vague purposes. Beware of the confluence of personal interest and public power as it could ruin your community and cost you millions upon millions of tax dollars. There is more to come on this one. [Steve Brown is the former mayor of Peachtree City. He can be reached at stevebrownptc@ureach.com.] login to post comments | Steve Brown's blog
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