How dare you question the Sioux Falls city councilors! What a grand bunch of ethical people.
Sorry, Staggers, I partially disagree with this amendment to the code of ethics;
Councilors maintain that advisory opinions should be reserved for city employees and elected officials but not for the general public. If a member of the public has a concern about a city official, then councilors maintain that a formal complaint with the ethics board is the appropriate avenue instead of an advisory opinion.
First off, last I checked I pay their wages and the majority elects them. If anybody has a right to ask for an advisory opinion (something I have done) it’s the public. I can understand Staggers concerns in the confidentiality part of it, he is basically asking that all parties involved be notified, I agree with him there.
Advisory opinions are not required to be confidential, and councilors say they can and have been used for political purposes.
But they CAN be confidential, it’s the choice of the person asking the opinion and as for the ‘political purposes’ that’s a bunch of bullshit. Politicians do things for ‘political purposes’ citizens do things for their own protection and survival of their rights. There is nothing ‘political’ about a conflict of interest. If someone is sitting on the council and they are a developer and they are voting on zoning and development issues, that looks like a pretty clear conflict of interest to me, I really don’t care what the ethics committee thinks, I have two eyes.
Once it becomes public that the ethics board is reviewing a matter, they say, the officials in question automatically come under suspicion of having done something to violate the code of ethics.
“That’s the headline you don’t want to have,” Councilor Gerald Beninga said.
And how is that the citizen’s fault? If you wanna cry to someone, I suggest you take it up with the media. Citizens don’t sit on editorial boards.
But members of the ethics board worry councilors are shutting off an avenue for the public to question city officials.
And they are right. Isn’t it amazing that the very group that this would affect gets to vote on their own code of ethics? What’s next? A raise?