On April 12, the Whatcom County Ethics Commission ruled that Ward Nelson did not violate the code of ethics and I can live with that ruling.
But I don’t have to like it.
I was disappointed, not just in the ruling, but in the fact that my two primary questions regarding Mr. Nelson’s conduct and ethics went unanswered:
Question One: Did Ward Nelson violate the governing principle of the code of ethics by voting on a matter when he had a private interest in it?
The Ethics Commission chose to not answer the question as I asked it.
Instead they chose to ask the question, “Were the votes on the appointment a matter of policy?” And they decided it wasn’t a matter of policy, in part because the WCC didn’t include the word “policy” in the definitions section of the Code of Ethics.
Since the governing principle of the Code of Ethics kicks in on matters of law or policy, the Ethics Commission concluded that Mr Nelson’s votes were not a matter of policy (it clearly wasn’t a matter of law, since the County Council didn’t vote to pass anything into law).
Question Two: Did Ward Nelson secure a special privilege for himself as the only nominee who was able to vote on the outcome?
The Ethics Commission didn’t answer that question as asked; rather they re-crafted the question into something I didn’t ask.
“Was Ward Nelson’s ability to vote itself a special privilege?”
The clear answer to that question was no.
It was equally clear that this wasn’t the question I asked.
The Commission changed the phrasing of my original question and kept repeating that changed phrasing until that became the question they were going to answer.
I provided a definition of a “special privilege” from a law dictionary. Black’s Law Dictionary. An authoritative source for legal definitions.
The members of the Ethics Commission, including one licensed attorney (Philip Sharpe), ignored that definition on the grounds that it didn’t appear in the definitions portion of the Code of Ethics.
I clearly defined what a special privilege was in legal terms and that definition was rejected on the apparent grounds that the Code of Ethics definition section didn’t redundantly include definitions to every legal term in the English language. This would have added something on the order of 50,000 words to the Code of Ethics. And I’m confident that the indefatigable Mr Sharpe would have tapped into his inner Bill Clinton and parsed those definitions, too.
I have no doubt that if I had provided an authoritative definition of “policy”, the Ethics Commission would have rejected that definition as well, on the same grounds that they rejected my definition of a “special privilege”.
Mr Sharpe’s parsing of words was such that in order for an ethics complaint to survive it... a complaint would have to include an exhaustive glossary of legal definitions for every meaningful word in the complaint. This would be a nearly impossible task for a trained attorney to accomplish, let alone a citizen with no legal training.
The Ethics Commission refused to address the fact that my question hinged on Ward Nelson’s status as a nominee that rendered his ability to vote special privilege.
The Ethics Commission made no attempt to address the simple concept that none of the nominees should have been voting on the outcome at all, not even if one of the nominees was a sitting council member.
The Ethics Commission seemed keenly interested in protecting Ward Nelson’s reputation. They seemed much less concerned about the matter of protecting the public trust.
Ward Nelson was never accused of any criminal activity; this was a civil matter. The Ethics Commission can’t be mistaken for a criminal court of law. The Commission can’t find anyone guilty of any felony or misdemeanor. Furthermore, the Ethics Commission doesn’t have the authority to remove anyone from public office. The most they could have done was impose a civil fine of no more than $1,000 per violation. I had requested that they not fine him.
This wasn’t a hearing so much as it was an official celebration of the communal power of denial.
Now, I have to chose between being Tom Cruise about this or being Jack Nicholson.
I chose to handle the truth.
I accept the findings of the Ethics Commission.
I will not be appealing the decision. Going to a Superior Court judge to get a simple admission of error is absurd. And life is just too short to take this matter any further.
Just so we are clear, no-one should ever apologize for holding their public servants to a high standard.
The Ethics Commission did the best they could. This matter is resolved.
In the long run, I hope two facts will linger in the collective memory of Whatcom County after all other details have faded away.
First, a private citizen can insist that a public official answer for official conduct.
Second, once a private citizen gets the answer, the citizen has a civic responsibility to accept that answer with grace and decorum.
It is easy to be gracious when things go your way. The trick is to be gracious when things go otherwise. And life is, in my experience, a long series of things going otherwise.
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