Council Changes City's Ethics Law Amid Heated Debate

Greenbelt City Council took up an ordinance on Monday with many of the minimum state standards that would, among other things, open the door for council members and certain other officials to accept gifts from lobbyists.

Greenbelt citizen, Molly Lester, spoke out against the new ordinance, saying that she had once been proud of being a citizen of Greenbelt because residents didn’t hold themselves to minimum standards.

She disagreed with the new financial disclosure requirements the ordinance would establish, which she said would require council members and other designated officials to only report earned income.

If someone had no visible means of income but was driving a Mercedes or had a fancy house, that was something Molly said she wanted to be able to dig into.

Mayor Judith “J” Davis strongly protested a claim Lester had made that the city was moving toward a lack of transparency that Lester had said was exemplified by its not holding a public hearing over the ethics ordinance.

Telling Lester that she had kind of besmirched council with this claim, Mayor Davis pointed out that council had held three public meetings on the topic, including two readings and a work session.

Lester responded, "Can I ask what besmirched means?”

"Well besmirched means to spot and cover with dirt and grime,” Mayor Davis answered.

"That's strong,” Lester replied.

But Mayor Davis did not back down, "Yeah, you besmirched our reputation,” she said.

Council member Roberts agreed with Lester saying, in actuality, with rare exceptions, in the first reading City Council doesn’t discuss the issue. "So the general thing is it comes up in the first reading, it doesn't get discussed. Now here it is ready to be passed, and the public really has no option,” he added.

Municipalities have until October 1, of 2011 to adopt the state’s minimum ethics requirements or pass their own ethics ordinance, which can be different from the states’ but only if the differences are more stringent than what the state requires.

Roberts moved for the city to make the ordinance language stronger by forbidding council members and certain officials to accept gifts from lobbyists. “Lobbyists don't give you things you know for free. They're trying to twist your arm all the time. That's what it's all about.”

Council member Konrad Herling seconded the motion.

As a result of his work with the federal government, Putens said he had long set boundaries with lobbyists, “We can talk, but we can not even have a beer with somebody." He added that if anyone was doing business with the city his fellow council members could not and should not accept any gift. "And that's been a rule since day one with me," he said.

For her part Mayor Davis told council that she had turned back gifts from people and that she didn’t even accept gifts from corporate business.

Putens said there had to be a lot of changes to the ordinance, but expressed concern over the fast approaching deadline for meeting the state’s ethics requirements, for which he said there would be no extension or exemption.

Council member Leta Mach encouraged council to look upon the ordinance as a living document that could be changed in the future. "I just think that  playing around with it now, trying to create it now in half an hour is just going to lead to unintended consequences,” she said.

In the end Konrad Herling withdrew his second from Roberts’ motion, but said he did that with the idea that, while going through the process, the city asked itself how it could make the ordinance tighter.

Council voted 6 to 1 in favor of passing the new ethics ordinance, with Roberts voting against it. All members of city council were present for the vote.

This story provides a summary of the issue. The exchange however provides such an interesting look into not only the ethics ordinance but into the many facets of council. So look for excerpts from some interesting exchanges to be posted in a follow up article.