After months of
back-and-forth negotiations with Shirley Grindle and other political watchdogs,
the Orange County Board of Supervisors is slated to vote Tuesday on whether to
put a proposal establishing a countywide ethics commission on the June 2016
primary ballot.
But as is often the case
with any significant lawmaking, the proposal supervisors will be voting on is
quite a bit different than what Grindle and her colleagues first put forward.
Here is a rundown of the major changes:
Who Gets to Pick the
Commissioners
Grindle's original plan,
which she announced in April, gave appointment power to former members of the
county’s civil grand jury, which has been willing to confront county
supervisors with searing reports in recent years.
Members of the Grand Jurors
Association of Orange County would interview and screen applicants, and narrow
down the pool to a smaller group. Former grand jury forepersons would then the
final decision on who gets appointed.
That would have taken
supervisors, who are supposed to be held accountable by the commission,
out of the appointment process.
But County Counsel Leon
Page issued a memo saying such an approach would be illegal since state law
doesn’t give any authority for counties to have independent commissions.
Pointing to the memo,
supervisors got Grindle to agree to place appointment power in the hands of
county supervisors, as long as commissioners meet certain requirements like not
being a political consultant or lobbyist in the previous 10 years.
In theory, state law could
be changed to allow an independent ethics commission but that idea wasn’t
mentioned by supervisors.
Grindle says she’s not
worried about it, as long as supervisors appoint people who aren’t closely
connected to politicians. “I think they’re going to find citizens who have
never been in the political life,” said Grindle.
“If the board does that let
em suffer the consequences, which is exposure,” she added. “I’m not quite as
cynical about it, because they want to look good. They want to brag about what
they have done.”
How Commissioners Would Get
Booted From Office
Under Grindle’s proposal,
commissioners could only be removed for “substantial neglect of duty, gross
misconduct in office, inability to discharge the powers and duties of the
office or violation of this [ethics commission] Ordinance, and conflicts of
interest.”
A majority of a panel of
former grand jury forepersons would have to issue a finding to that effect, and
only then would a majority of county supervisors be able to remove a
commissioner.
That was changed to allow
four of the five county supervisors to “remove a Commissioner, at any time,
with or without cause.”
And a commissioner could be
removed with a simple supervisors’ majority if most of the ethics commission
recommends removal.
Commissioners’ Term Length
Grindle’s proposal had
commissioners serving five year terms, which supervisors later dropped to three
year terms without public explanation.
“There’s just no real good
reason to have dropped it to three,” Grindle said. “I would hope the
board would consider changing that from three to five year terms.”
Subpoena Powers
Under Grindle’s proposal,
it could subpoena witnesses and records relevant to an investigation.
That would put it in line with the ethics commissions in Los Angeles and San
Francisco, which have full subpoena power, along with the state Fair Political
Practices Commission or FPPC.
After negotiating with
supervisors, the Orange County subpoena powers were narrowed down, taking away
the ability to subpoena witnesses and limiting records subpoenas to just the
bank records of campaign committees.
Grindle says that while she
wishes it had full subpoena powers, in money laundering investigations where
such powers would be warranted, the commission would probably turn the
investigation over to the FPPC, which has full subpoena powers.
She added that when the
process started out, supervisors didn’t want any subpoena powers for the
commission.
Investigating Misconduct by
County Managers and Employees
When Grindle announced her
proposal in April, one of her biggest pitches for it was that it could be an
independent place for county workers and contractors to report misconduct.
She pointed to the example
of the sexual abuse allegations against Carlos Bustamante, a former executive
in the county's public works department. Women who worked for Bustamante
alleged sexual abuse only to see their complaints referred to an underling of
Bustamante’s. Bustamante was later criminally charged with sexually
abusing workers and his case is scheduled to go to trial early next year.
Grindle’s proposal had the commission
investigate unethical conduct by county managers and employees, and receive
tips through a whistleblower hotline.
After the negotiations, the
whistleblower hotline was removed, as was enforcement of the state Model
Conflict of Interest Code. And enforcement of the county's Code of
Ethics was narrowed from the entire code to just sections 6 and 9.
That removes enforcement of
the provisions for conflicts of interest and interference of political
activities with county duties.
Grindle says she’s not too
worried about the hotline being removed, since the commission would only accept
complaints in writing, signed by their author and citing which laws have been
broken.
“There’s no question that
in the future there probably would be changes made. This is the first attempt
for Orange County to have this kind of a commission. And I’m sure it’s not
perfect, it’s the best we can do now, and we just got to get it on the books.”
“In my opinion we got 90
percent of the loaf, and that’s better than none.”
She also noted that the
Board of Supervisors, most of whose members are new this year, has come a long
way.
“I
have tried to get this done for ten years. About six, seven years ago, I
couldn’t get three votes on the board, and I figured, you know what, the Board
of Supervisors are term limited and I’m not…and I just out-waited ’em,” she
said.
October 15, 2015
Voice
of OC
By
Nick Gerda
