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San Diego County, CA | March 5, 2002 Election |
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Ethics SolutionBy Chuck BahdeCandidate for Council Member; City of San Diego; Council District 2 |
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"Clean" Elected Officials and Project ApprovalsNewly elected Mayor Dick Murphy's number one priority in his State of the City Address was to restore the public's confidence in city leadership. His goal was to create a strong and impartial watchdog that would make sure our public officials made the right decisions for the right reasons. To that goal the Ethics Commission was established. The Commission will write a new Ethics Code to guide the conduct of our City Officials, establish investigation and enforcement procedures, and will impose penalties and sanctions for violations of the Code. This March we will vote to change to our City Charter to give the Ethics Commission subpoena power. This is the legal power to require witnesses to testify under oath and to produce documents that are needed to investigate alleged violations. Without such powers, the ethics commission will be a "toothless watchdog". Elected officials must be held to a higher standard than your average civil service employee. They have taken an Oath of Office to represent the voters with the highest fiduciary duty. When they violate this duty, there must be consequences. In testimony before the Retirement Board, Ethics Commission, and City Council, I urged that denial of retirement benefits be such a consequence. When the plea bargain in the Council member Stallings case (insider trading and unreported gifts) was announced, I was shocked to learn that her retirement benefits ($23,000. per year) would not be effected by this agreement. My research revealed that under current statute and ordinances there are no circumstances under which an elected official could lose their retirement benefits. This is just flat out wrong! There must be specific language added to the Municipal Code allowing the Retirement Board to deny benefits for an elected official. Other retirement systems have "bad boy" statutes that allow Boards to deny vesting and return contributions or approve lesser benefits. I will again ask that the Ethics Commission review this issue so that the City Council can pass the appropriate ordinances or statutes that would grant the Retirement Board the power to deny retirement benefits to fallen elected officials. During the past decade in the City of San Diego, in order to facilitate large real estate projects, there has been too much of "doing what's legal and not enough of doing what's right" . This lack of honesty is the direct cause of the lawsuits and the delays that we have witnessed. To cite some examples.
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