April 6, 2009

Dear Friends:

The Montgomery County Commissioners have finally acted to approve the most significant reform of the county's Ethics Code in the fifteen years the Code has existed.  We are reducing political activity and abuses in the Courthouse and we are making county government more transparent.  It is about time!

The recent overwhelming guilty verdict in the criminal trial of former Senator Vince Fumo is a clear indication that the public is very tired of political abuses and fraudulent use of tax dollars by arrogant politicians.

Ironically, the final impetus for this ethics reform in Montgomery County came from Commissioner Bruce Castor's sworn testimony in the Fumo trial in which Castor admitted, under cross examination by the prosecutor, to many of the same political abuses while he was DA for which Fumo was ultimately convicted.

Of course, county politics being what it is, Commissioner Castor led the charge to delay and oppose my proposals to reform and expand our ethics provisions, which were finally passed by Chairman Jim Matthews and me on a 2-1 vote after long debate at three public meetings of the county commissioners.

Jim Matthews and I agreed to prohibit certain political activity by key county employees to avoid conflicts of interest, and the appearance of conflicts, between the public duties of employees and any personal political activities.

We were guided by the term "sensitive employee" found in the state Ethics law to determine which county employees to cover.  State law requires financial disclosure from those key government employees who have discretionary financial and legal authority.  Accordingly, we covered top commission staff, department heads and their deputies and fulltime lawyers - totalling about 180 out of 3,200 county employees. 

We have prohibited those sensitive employees from running for public office, raising political funds or managing political campaigns.  They are still free to engage in party politics, support candidates and freely express their political opinions.  But we want to prevent those top employees who advise us on financial matters or negotiate contracts with vendors and special interests or negotiate with defense lawyers from also running campaigns and raising political money.  And we also want to protect these employees from improper political demands from their elected bosses.

We also included several provisions to make county government more open and transparent. 

We will now require publication on the county's website of the annual financial disclosure statement that hundreds of county elected officials, employees and appointees must currently file with the State Ethics Commission.  

We will also put on our website all campaign finance filings by political candidates and committees which are currently filed with the county's Election Board.

We have specifically forbidden the use of any county offices, supplies, equipment or electronic communications for any political activity.  And we will now require public competitive bidding and approval by the commissioners before any employee or elected official can purchase or sell any county assets.

We have also appointed an Ethics Advisory Committee to provide recommendations on updating and improving the enforcement of the county ethics policies.

These reforms have not been met with universal approval, to say the least.  The political powers-that-be in Montgomery County like things the way they are, and change doesn't come easily - so the Old Guard is unhappy.

But it is a new day in Montgomery County.  The taxpayers deserve to know that elected officials and key employees are doing the people's business, not political business, in the county courthouse.

As always, please keep those cards and letters (and emails) coming.


Sincerely,