Questions and Answers
Citizens' Commission on Best Practices on Government Governance
1. How can we encourage local media to do a better job of informing the
Community about candidates running for office?
a. The media needs to consider engagement on various levels and undertake its efforts to present candidates for public evaluation and consideration. One way may be to sponsor candidate forums and organize discussions about the issues involved in any given race. The media could also cover the accountability sessions that are sponsored by EPISO and Border-Interfaith for candidates running for particular offices more often and thoroughly, since these generally are the largest forums in the election season.
b. The organizations for candidates, including the parties, can also propose means for discussion of issues that are motivating candidates to run. One means to try and expand the discussion would be to have candidate forums for all candidates to participate in with each major party sponsoring the forum to include all candidates, not just the party’s candidate.
c. Local community organizations can expand and augment opportunities for candidates to address the members of their organizations and present their backgrounds, views and objectives for their candidacy.
d. The emphasis should be on education concerning positions rather than trying to highlight an issue in which conflict or controversy reside as the main attraction. Let the voter understand the positions and determine which one they are convinced to support by supporting the candidate.
e. Fundamentally, this is a citizen wide effort that must be pursued by citizens in their various settings and activities. It does not depend on any one entity or group to fulfill the job, though the media has a higher responsibility given its function.
2. Can the process of personal appointments of people to Committees be changed to a fairer more equitable selection process based on qualifications rather than relationships?
a. It can be, but consideration for best practices to de-emphasize political influences will have to prevail and political leaders would have to understand and accept that the power of appointment is a tool for enhanced policy making and not furtherance of a political agenda.
b. Screening pools like the American Bar Association uses to evaluate judicial candidates are among the means that could be considered for mitigating against politically driven appointments that may not favor a balanced policy approach.
3. How can we develop “Sunshine” citizen review committees to research and observe public bodies and report observed or suspected unethical and illegal practices?
a. Any group of citizens can organize an activity as described to stay attuned to and maintain a sense of engagement with public entities and issues. This is both a citizen’s opportunity and a citizen’s duty. What is important, though, is the way and means to maintain a constructive and effective interaction for discussion leading towards solutions and resolutions. It is not an easy process, though, nor is it subject to a simple approach or model. It would be valuable to get a sense of such public committee processes and formations to discern the best means to secure buy-in and changes in practices.
b. Additionally, open records and meeting laws provide mechanisms today for this type of engagement and oversight by citizens motivated by their desires for better governance and interest in the formative process that government uses to develop policy.
4. What is the best way to forestall corrupt behavior?
a. Eliminate the incentives for such behavior including the belief that once elected, the official is a ‘law unto themselves’ and that as long as whatever is done is for the ‘betterment’ of the community, it can be justified. Critically, the ends are just as important as the means, and so they are not justified if they wreak of cronyism or subjective assessments based on factors other than capability, performance, honor, and good work.
b. Citizens being more directly engaged in the political process and taking an active role in the process, beginning with the election process, by regularly voting, followed by involvement in the governing process, is critical; also staying abreast of issues and policy determinations and understanding the elements and consequences being proposed, instead of assuming that the representation via elected officials will suffice to protect all interests involved in an issue. An informed and active citizenry is among the most pro-active tools to fend off the temptations of corruption and side dealing.
c. Trying to discern a clearer distinction between running for an office and governing from an office once an election is complete
d. There is a distinction, and it should be acknowledged and honored.
d. Additionally, the means to forestall corrupt behavior will have a variety of characteristics and actions-there is no one “best way” but a series of better ways that evoke best practices (after evaluating the temptations that prompt corrupt actions) and processes that would reduce the opportunity for fraud, abuse, waste or corruption..
5. How do we create sufficient consequences that are not self-regulated by the department to create an environment that encourages ethics?
a. First, ethics needs to be understood as an evaluation and process of evaluation that attempts to discern where self-interest and public interest collide in a manner that does damage to the independence desired for a decision deemed to benefit the public interest. That is not easy when an elected official believes that their opinion or determination is, in fact, the public interest primarily because of their elected status.
b. Second, the means by which a decision is made has to be evaluated to assess whether self-interest has been sufficiently “checked” or held in balance, to avoid interspersion in a decision deemed to benefit the public and to form the interest of the public.
c. Third, a process for evaluating an issue needs to be set up so that the official looks to such a resource as a means of assisting in screening a determination before a decision or an action is taken. Through such a process, as an example, referred to a position that by law and function is independent of the official, the prospect of self-dealing can be regulated to minimize undue influence in the “check”.
d. Fourth, this type of commitment to extract the highest standard of assessment practicable requires leadership. That this type of process and conduct is not regarded as routine, likely reflects an institutional and root problem.
6. “The notion of self-policing industries is naïve. Similarly games without impartial referees disintegrate into chaos.” Randall Cohen, Ethics Columnist, NY Times. Do you agree? Explain.
a. Yes.
b. Without checks and balances, self-policing becomes a process without effect. It is symbolic, but it is not regulatory nor constructive. Through a series of principles and actions, a process of evaluation can be established and followed. This is the idea behind the impartial referee whose function is to enforce the rules without regard to consequence of the effect. This is also the idea behind the concept of the “rule of law”. When the duty has the force of law, it is likely to be acknowledged and respected and those aspects will allow for an evaluation outside the crucible of self-interest. Only through such values will process have meaning sufficient to render the observations accurate.
7. How do we force transparency when it is in the politician’s best interest to hide what they are doing?
a. It is a requirement of governance and, as such, the tendency to engage in non-public deliberations must be checked.
b. Open meeting and records law affirms the philosophy of openness for observations and decisions. The citizen is entitled to this openness. However, the citizen must also insist upon it.
8. How to overcome incompetencies and inefficiencies that is wasteful, which is a form of corruption?
a. Education and training in effective management practices and processes should be considered. It is not a requirement, in most instances, for elected officials, even if they are responsible for management functions and oversight, to have specific abilities in these areas and this requirement on a best practices basis would be helpful to both the elected official and the public interest involved.
b. Like public companies, another best practice that should be evaluated in its possible applications to government is the processing of auditing, both from internal staff and independent of the management and contracted experts independent of the governing body. If elected leaders were required to certify the accuracy of the budget and the expenditures of funds, much like what is required of executives in publicly held corporations, it would impose more obligations for assuring that money and resources are neither wasted nor under-used. This type of disclosure would benefit the electorate in assessing how effective the leadership has been in their management of public resources and determining whether a change in leadership is either necessary or beneficial.
9. What are the things that are being done to protect citizens other than just written rules and also protect them from being labeled when they come forward?
a. Ideas such as an anonymous hotline are among the best practices that can be considered and evaluated much as is done in public companies. It would be preferable, however, that such assessments were done internal to the governmental entity, initially, as is done in public companies, through their audit staffs, both internal and external, to properly investigate and evaluate the merit of the issue and complaint and refer it to resolution. This is particularly true when such a complaint involves an elected official. The track record in private enterprise has been fairly successful, but critical to this success is the independence that resides in the Board of Directors for a corporation. It is more of a challenge where the role of overseer and head executive is filled in one position, as is the case for an elected official, since, theoretically, the “Board” in this instance is the electorate.
b. There may be other options as well and this response, not exhaustive of what those other options might be, underscores that one of the benefits of the website is being able to capture input and suggestions in relation to these concepts. The objective is to promote best practices to mitigate or otherwise reduce the abuse of process and access that oftentimes cultivates corrupt practices. As was indicated during the public forum the poison of corruption is evident when a corruption probe or criminal investigation reflects such a situation of abuse of process and access. The idea is to put in place work habits and processes that prevent the occurrence from taking hold, since this is the ultimate focus of the Commission’s work.
10. How do we get more people involved, informed and attentive to the issue of corruption? How can it be made relevant?
a. The Commission’s public forum was an opening and significant step toward increasing citizen involvement and illustrating that corruption extracts money for general resources out of the general treasury. This type of selective investment benefits corrupt interests and violates the public interest obligation that elected officials have a duty to fulfill.
b. Corruption destroys a community’s economic advancement and this condition means that it is relevant to everyone in a community, since the economic viability of a community is its lifeline towards growth, equal opportunity, and prosperity for all who would work towards such ends in the community.
11. Has this Commission defined a process to report corruption that is safe to the caller?
a. At this point, the Commission does not regard its role as a conduit for the law enforcement authorities, be they Federal or State or local. Each of these entities has a process for reporting suspected criminal activity in a manner that safeguards the interest of the caller and these are the primary outlets for contact should a concerned individual believe that certain activity or actions are in violation of law, including activity that reflects public corruption, which is against the law.
b. The Commission’s attention is on how to systemically extract the opportunity or temptation for corruption by evaluating processes and practices that would ferret out or otherwise discourage the opportunity for corruption to breed and then grow.
12. How do we make the public care about government and participating in government?
a. Corruption is the consequence when citizens either don’t care or can’t be bothered with the functions, activities, and processes of government.
b. Corruption destroys the economic well being of the community.
c. Impacts of corruption are never positive-they are all negative, on an individual basis as well as on a group wide basis, whether it is those who benefit from the corruption or those who are victimized by the corruption.
d. If citizens, with this knowledge and understanding about the effects of not being engaged in government and its responsibilities, cannot care or will not care, then our system of self-government and individual liberty and opportunity is in serious jeopardy.
e. With such risk confronting us as citizens, surely we can effect a caring approach towards government and its activities.
13. Would you support that public officials be made accountable and held to a higher standard for public officials getting 2 to 3 times higher penalty?
a. Apparently in areas where the federal government believes that individuals have a higher duty of responsibility that type of punishment scheme is in place. For example, Congress increased fines and imprisonment penalties for officers of publicly held companies engaged in accounting fraud.
b. In the case of public officials entrusted with the public’s assets and using those assets for the collective good, the standard of accountability and responsibility should be just as high. Certifications related to a lack of fraud, waste, and abuse in a public body’s budget that is adopted; or in an allocation of money; or in the award of a contract for services or product; along with a requirement that the purpose of the expenditure be audited and confirmed as meeting the allocation’s purpose may serve to curb behavior and decisions that would otherwise further fraud, waste or abuse. This would be particularly true if fines and imprisonment penalties were attached to violations related to the certifications. This is the type of imposition that has been placed on public companies; it would appear that similar requirements would be appropriate for local government where money awards are concerned. This is a form of best practice in this area.
14. You (Woody Hunt, panelist) stated that procurement policy is currently a process based on relationships. There need to be changes in the procurement policies. What changes do you think need to be made to the current procurement process?
(This response is a reconstitution of Mr. Hunt’s answer from the forum):
There should be a wholly objective registration and selection process like is used in the Federal procurement system where a bidder is assigned a number and the identity of the bidder is not revealed to the government or in the process until after the selection is accomplished.
In local procurement practices, the ability of a bidder while in an active bid to visit with the selector is not a best practice and should be eliminated and reformed.
15. We, as a community, need to raise our expectations of public officials. How can we make our public officials more accountable?
a. Previous responses have discussed examples of best practices that might extract a higher level of accountability. These pertained to certifications by public officials about the integrity of the budget they were adopting and the allocation of money in the budget not being in furtherance of waste, fraud or abuse; the conduct of audits, both internal and external, for actions in compliance with legal and accounting standards and for improvement in processes, wholly independent from the manipulation of public officials.
b. It is necessary to emphasize the duties that an elected official owes to the public over any obligations that an official my naturally feel to supporters or a political party. These loyalties apply when running for office, but a whole different set of standards apply when governing. This is a distinction not generally accepted or enforced in both personal and institutional settings.
c. This is a representative listing of ideas or concepts that should be enhanced with other ideas and thoughts relative to assuring a higher standard of both accountability and performance. It is noteworthy that impositions of such duties and accountable conduct is imposed on public companies because of their management of investor money. It would seem that no less should be required of elected officials.
16. How can we expect integrity in our judicial system when we force our judges to solicit campaign contributions from the very people who regularly appear before them?
a. The area of political contributions, their management, reporting and requirements is an area that will always be open for improvement because of the political influence and the resultant potential state of abuse. As long as we require competitive elections where candidates for office, including judges, must account for their differences in position or philosophy of governance or function, fundraising will continue to provide challenges of the type the question invokes. This is a process that requires further consideration and exploration to improve
b. Because of the many facets involved with political fundraising and the engagement of partisanship in the process of competition, a resolution of this inherent and apparent conflict will require extensive analysis, work and consideration to produce effective regulation and practices that will mitigate the idea of undue influence presented by monetary support.
c. This is a particularly troublesome issue simply because money is necessary to run for office and money is submitted by supporters or those who would like to provide support of the candidate. This is an area of opportunity for best practices and likely will produce a forum dedicated to the topic for public input and ideas.
17. How can we address the good ole boy networks in contracts, which, in turn, impede business?
a. The pursuit of best practices in procurement along the lines already referenced, to include regular audits of such public project will set an entirely different tone and process for procurement that will mitigate against this perception. When abuses in access, process, or awards occurs, or when errors are made in the process, the sponsoring governmental bodies must be prepared to address and resolve the abuses and correct the conditions where the system failed to attain its objective of a balanced, fair, and impartial selection for service or product providers to government.
18. How do we attract higher quality candidates to run for office?
a. This question raises several issues as to whether the candidates who elect to run are “quality”, a subjective reference at best. However, issues abound around payment for services; the electioneering process that requires monetary contributions to sustain the process and the promotion of candidates through a denigration of the “quality” of the other candidate by focusing on matters that may have nothing to do with positions or abilities. The nature of the process, therefore, can have a “chilling” effect on those who believe they may have something to offer but do not want to become media fodder on matters that attack the individual, as a means to distinguish an opponent from the candidate.
b. This topic likely requires its own forum to discuss, debate and resolve.
19. How do you know when you are being unethical?
a. Public companies have a process to filter out opportunities that may permit undue influence in a vendor or professional services relationship to cloud the judgment of management. Among such is the evaluation of all expense paid trips or the availability of entertainment tickets in venues where there is a high demand (e.g.. the Masters’ Golf Championship; the Super Bowl; the 7th game of the World Series, the Final Four (NCAA Basketball Tourney); and, as a result, whether the event has business alignment other than influence). In a political setting, a similar review may cool the temptation to elect to take the “free tickets”. What is the governance purpose, particularly when government, for procurement, holds most, if not all, ‘of the cards’? To what end?
b. The presence of undue influence, raises an issue of ethics- and this type of assessment requires the type of analytical thinking about relationships that will assist in curbing situations where undue influence translates into a corrupting influence.
c. Partial disclosure is another means of measuring whether the action may be unethical; if you are selective in the disclosure about items in a public interest issue, then this might be a signal that self-interest is clouding the public interest representation.
20. How can you diminish the advantage of incumbency to elevate the opportunity of challengers to win elections in order to negate others from trying to influence incumbents?
a. This is a process that requires further analysis to make valid observations for improvement and the detriments, if any, that this type of “favoritism” plays in limiting both best practices and good governance.
b. One area that affects this situation is the fundraising process, which generally works in favor of the incumbent.
c. Is the idea of pursuing fundraising by an official running for reelection but not facing any opposition, acceptable? What are the implications if such an option were legally denied an incumbent candidate unless opposition was manifest.
21. How do we educate votes and increase voter turnout?
a. Community initiatives that introduce candidates to members and employees, in the case of employers, are among the means of active and practical voter education that allows for a convenient and concentrated opportunity for voter education and interaction.
b. There are many organizations in the community that can engage such activity and provide an individual citizen and community service jointly and coincident with one another.
c. This is not an exhaustive consideration, so additional thoughts are welcomed.
22. How do we include ethics in middle and high school classes?
a. Re-introduce Civics as a part of the curriculum-present survey courses that begin to probe the complexities of relationships and the opportunities for undue influence and competing interests that create the evaluation of conflicts of interest, otherwise known as “Ethics”.
b. This will assist individuals to begin to understand the level of “undue influence” that can work against a process and an individual involved in the process, resulting in an abdication of responsibility and accountability that would not be appropriate, confirming the existence of a conflict of interest.
c. The idea is to develop this recognition early, so that it is used and refined in a variety of settings.
23. Can we better enforce laws on the books?
a. Only if citizens are attentive and committed to betterment of government.
24. How can we report suspected corruption?
a. Official corruption (corruption by elected or appointed government officials) can be reported to the local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (832- 5000) or a visit to the FBI offices on South Mesa Hills Drive.
25. If we notice obvious friendships between contractors and City officials, what can we do?
a. Friendships are not illegal. Bribes or improper influences or conspiracies to secure services, contracts, or other business through such efforts are. This is the type of situation that may warrant further investigation and possible charges. Friendships, though, are not an actionable form of conduct without a “quid pro quo”.
26. What are the risks of fighting corruption?
a. Resulting ostracism within the group or professional associations/affiliations if you are identified as someone who wants to disclose or reveal situations where bribes or other improper influences are playing a part in the award of government contracts or services.
b. This is true if there is a particular culture of corruption and the practitioners have a vested interest in preserving their status quo of corruption and corrupting influences.
27. What was the cause of all this? How can we solve the problem of corruption without knowing its causes?
a. Some of the prior questions touch on the opportunities for abuse of power.
b. Fundamentally, corruption is a form of abuse of power and it occurs when those who pursue corrupt practices presume that these practices are what is necessary to further the aims of their efforts.
c. The existence of corruption also reflects a misunderstanding of how things should be processed in government and the need for a process that is balanced and has extracted the opportunity for undue influence.
d. The presence of money and the access to power are two conditions that are source elements for corruption, along with the belief that an elected official can exercise power for good, even if the basis for the exercise of power is by means of an illegal or improper influence.
e. The cause of corruption is bred in practices that promote corruption; and a determination to either ignore the effects or simply accept them as part of the process.
The answers to the questions in Spanish are reflected in the prior questions as they pertain to undue influence or aspects of political contributions.
Finally, these answers are intended to provoke further answers and thoughts. Please provide us your feedback relative to the answers or ideas you believe may address the issues.
The only way to improvement is through interaction in many different forms. We hope this level of interaction will promote ideas and practices that may ultimately assist us in making for a corrupt free engagement of government and the private sector.
Thank you for your consideration and attention.
The Citizens' Commission