Ethics board's future still up in the air
24.05.12
, Not locally. Several members of the public said there was a backlog and the bureaucracy was not easy to deal with, among other issues. They said they would prefer to deal locally with an ethics issue.
It was the cost of a recent appeal, estimated at $22,000, which soured council on further supporting the ethics board. Councilman Roy Wagner, who has supported the ethics board since its spending came into question in November, said he wanted to move forward and appoint Pszczolkowski.
“Maybe the person who filed the appeal will change his mind,” Wagner said, adding that the city has a backlog of cases to deal with and needs to get busy.
Councilman Keith Hartzell said he wanted council to make a decision on the ethics board, not quibble about appointing a member.
“Do it, vote it up or down, have a board or not. Let’s set a ‘drop dead’ date to do it,” he said.
Hartzell said he had further researched the state’s ethics board and found that much of what the public had said in arguing against using it was not true. An appeal at the state level is funded by the state; a local appeal is the sole responsibility of local taxpayers.
Source: Shore News Today