City should expand ethics board

Published 8:00 am Saturday, January 28, 2017

Milledgeville’s city ethics board has another complaint before it, this time involving allegations of discrimination by members of the local development authority board. The ethics board convened Monday but made no decision on the complaint. Ethics board member Patricia Hicks chose to step aside due to a conflict of interest. Now, Milledgeville City Council needs to decide on a replacement for Hicks to hear the complaint, as the city’s ethics policy states that complaints must be heard within 60 days of them being filed.

It is likely that City Council will appoint someone new to the ethics board at the governing body’s next regularly scheduled meeting.

What the city should also do, however, is reassess its policy, which calls for a three-member ethics board, and look at expanding the board to avoid these types of conflicts in the future.

There will always be conflicts of interest, and it’s up to the board to recognize them and take the proper steps in order to ensure that complaints are evaluated professionally and with evenhandedness. Moving to five members, however, would allow the ethics board to hear complaints even if there is a conflict and a member has to step aside so that the ethics process is not delayed. Expanding the board would be particularly helpful in tedious cases where a considerable amount of time is needed to hear the evidence.

According to the city’s ethics policy, the board should consist of people who “are city residents, serve two-year terms and are appointed by Council and the mayor. The aim is to have an unbiased group of non-elected officials handle complaints.”

This isn’t the first time the city has faced an issue with finding replacement board members. In 2014, one of the city’s first ethics board members resigned due to work conflicts and another resigned the same year because he had moved outside the city limits. That happened while the board had a complaint before it that had been waged against nearly all the members of City Council. They had to seek outside counsel to figure out how to proceed in the matter, only adding to what turned into a long, drawn out process to hear the complaint.

Expanding to five members with staggered two-year terms would allow complaints to be heard expeditiously even if one of the board members has to step aside.

City officials should look at making this change to help streamline the hearing process and avoid delays.