The City of Senoia is embarking on a proposal to draw up a proposal to govern ethics of its city workers and elected officials.

Mayor Robert Belisle had suggested the city look into the issue and Monday night’s City Council discussion focused on whether a committee would be formed to address any ethics complaints before they reached the City Council.

“I think a committee would help prevent the city from policing itself and also allow the public to have some input,” said City Councilman Larry Owens.

But Councilman Bill Wood wondered how qualified the residents would be to deal with many of the technical issues surrounding any complaint. Wood alluded to the recent all-day session hosted by the city for filling out campaign contribution forms.

“it’s a large workload to ask a citizen to have,” Wood added.

But the consensus of the council was to look into establishing a committee. Councilman Keith Harrison suggested randomly drawing 12 citizens from the voters’ list and then picking three names out of a hat to form the committee.

The council decided to study the issue further, but Belisle made it clear that hard evidence would have to be presented to get an ethics complaint studied.

“This can’t be a ‘he said, she said’ type of situation,” he said.

The mayor also emphasized that the instigator of any complaint would “have to follow it through the process.”

The City Council asked staff to address their concerns and bring back an ordinance for further discussion.

login to post comments