TU: Jacksonville lawyer Jon Phillips named city's acting ethics officer

[Patricia M. McBride]

Hmmmm.  Does this make sense?   The mayor appoints the ethics officer, and what if someone in the mayor's group does something wrong?  Who does Mr. Phillips owe allegience to?  Us the taxpayers or the mayor?  

 

By Steve Patterson

January 25, 2012 - 02:14pm

Jacksonville lawyer Jon Phillips named city's acting ethics officer

Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown named a City Hall lawyer Wednesday to fill a vacant post as city ethics officer.

Senior Assistant General Counsel Jon R. Phillips, a former prosecutor who advised the Jacksonville Ethics Commission until last year, is filling a slot last held by Carla Miller, whose appointment ended after Mayor John Peyton left office.

“I strongly believe in ethics in city government, and Jon Phillips carries a wealth of experience that will help advance that important mission,” Brown said in a written announcement about the appointment.

Phillips can hold the title of acting officer for 60 days before receiving City Council confirmation.

But his permanent appointment would seemingly open a budgetary can of worms about how the city will pay for ethics training and enforcement.

After Miller left her last post, the Ethics Commission picked her as director of the new city Office of Ethics, Compliance and Oversight.

The council passed an ordinance last year Miller had championed that established the office and said it was to be funded in 2012 with existing city money and no extra cost to taxpayers.

Ethics advocates had argued the new office, referenced within the city charter, could be more politically independent because the director would be accountable to the commission, rather than to a mayor.

The city hasn’t released any money for the director’s salary, however, and Brown said this month he was examining both ethics offices as part of an overall review of city government. The city’s 2012 budget contains $75,000 for part-time ethics employment, plus money for legal services from the General Counsel’s Office for a total cost of $142,509.

Phillips, a lawyer for more than 30 years focusing on personal injury and civil rights law, was paid $119,000 by the city last year. He has worked in the General Counsel’s Office since 2002.

Commission members voiced frustration Wednesday.

“We need to understand why he thought it was necessary have an ethics officer who would report to the mayor,” member Helen Ludwig told other commissioners meeting Wednesday. “I’m very disappointed. I feel as though I’ve been let down.”

Brown’s chief of staff, Chris Hand, said choices on funding the ethics compliance office depend on whether the council intended the money it budgeted is to be used by the ethics compliance office, a city ethics office, or both.

“It appears that they funded that as the [city] ethics office,” he said, but said the matter isn’t settled.

Hand said how Phillips would be paid in his new role was “an administrative matter” to be settled by the General Counsel’s Office and city finance officials. Phillips told commissioners concerns about his appointment were misguided.

“I think it’s unfortunate there’s been an interpretation that devoting additional resources to ethics is somehow not a good thing,” he said.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-01-25/story/jacksonville-la...

 

[Patricia M. McBride]

Peggy, I tend to be a little wordy.................sorry :)

[Patricia M. McBride]

This was something I was involved in during the period when the council was working the initial bill through the council (and yes, there was a small and very limited budget that covered Carla's salary and I believe some administrative.......which means when Brown withdrew the funding suddenly without warning, he took Carla's paycheck away without so much as the consideration of a warning that I know of).   I know Carla is probably doesn't have the same political views as Brown (and we are finding out democrats don't play nice with anyone but other democrats or at least that is what I am noticing in Washington..........and then, they blame it on the other guy :).)

 

Anyway, the council's majority didn't want an independent ethics commission.  They talked about witch hunts against city council members, but it goes far deeper as the bill they ended up with totally gutted anything that passed for an ethics commission.  They wouldn't let the board choose it's own director, they wouldn't let them do anything.  The council and the mayor were going to choose all involved and what good is an ethics commission to the people if you have your own guys on it and you have only just added another layer to the group who might be targets of investigation (certainly, we wasted a great deal of time when Carla might has gone after the JEDC long before now)???  Anyway, we all set in chambers during committee meetings and at council meetings and watched them take the bill apart a piece at a time and completely take away the original intent of what was supposed to be an independent commission to weed out all the fraud, corruption, theft, etc.  Now, the mayor, has just stepped in and taken Carla out (who I had understood would be kept in place as director for some stated period........I have not yet had time to go back and pull the original bill up as yet).  I didn't feel good about what they did, but now, what is even the sense in having an ethics commission if the mayor is going to put his guy or girl in the director spot and choose more of the mayor's people to sit on the commission?  We might as well not have it at all and think maybe this was someone who needed a spot or was a donator to the Brown campaign or ????  Apparently, there is so much corruption and fraud in our city, fear of a "real" ethics commission scares the heck out of the folks downtown?  And JEDC is only a foot in the door as the city was ripe with opportunities for an ethics commission to keep very busy!

[Peggy Hall]

Did they ever get a budget to do any work?