I'm want to make this clear up front - I'm NOT attacking Ms. Miller on any sort of personal level. I think she's made it clear that she takes her job seriously and believes in what she's doing. She's a fomer federal prosecutor, she's been all over the world helping cities develop ethics program...she knows her stuff. The problem is that she can't do her job properly even if she wants to! Because here in Jacksonville, "politics as usual" means that that last thing anyone wants is the Ethics Officer to go around enforcing any sort of decent standarss!
The Florida Times-Union has put out two interesting pieces in the last few days. I apologize, readers, for taking so long to get to them, because they're pretty important pieces. The first details an akward, embarrasing moment for this city and the second explains how we've come to this situation.
While you should absolutely read both of those stories, I'll sum up for you. The Jacksonville Ethics Commission is a 9 member board and the members are appointed by the Mayor, City Council President, School Board, etc. Each of those members owe their position to someone - the person who appointed them. The Commission has no full-time staff and no real budget. They don't have any real power to go initiate investigations. If the Florida Times-Union has it correct, Ethics Officer Carla Miller doesn't even report to the Commission - her bosses (plural!) are the Mayor and The City Council.
Even if - IF - either the Commission or Ms. Miller WANTED to do an investigation, they'd be stuck in the gates. No money, no staff, and the fact that at any given moment they have a natural conflict of interest themselves - do they serve their bosses, the city, the taxpayers? Or do they just do the best they can to cover their own behinds in an ugly situation?
Again we come to my favorite topic, Jack Webb and Trail Ridge. As I'm sure you know, City Council VP Jack Webb has done a real good job of making it look like he sold his vote - and his influential voice - to Republic Services, the billion-dollar waste management company that wants to operate the Trail Ridge Landfill. You'll see in various posts here and in all kinds of news stories at the Times-Union that both Webb and Republic look really bad - it's hard to see how this wasn't some kind of a premeditiated, back-room smoking-a-cigar kind of deal between them.
At the most recent meeting of the Ethics Commission, the best our theoretical "watchdogs" could do was resolve to "invite" Mr. Webb before them at their next meeting. INVITE? To come have some tea? And maybe a biscuit or scone, too?
Our watchdog is a toothless tiger. Impotent. Useless. Not because they're bad people, and not because they don't want to do their jobs. It's because the City of Jacksonville won't give them them the tools and independence to do their job. After all, they sure wouldn't want any investigations going on - politicians might lose their seats and big businesses with their lobbyist pals might lose their big paydays.
Mayor Peyton, City Council - give our Ethics Commission and Ethics Officer the tools and freedom they require to do their job!
Ethics Commission, Ms. Miller - please, 'invite' Mr. Webb a little harder and make sure you get to the bottom of this Trail Ridge story!
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