by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
Transparency and accountability is what the City of Jacksonville’s Ethics Commission strives to promote within the government and a member of the City Council wants to clear up how that pertains to the City’s independent authorities.
The City’s Ethics Commission met for its monthly meeting Monday and it welcomed Dist. 1 Council member Clay Yarborough to discuss ethics legislation that he is sponsoring. Ordinance 2008-839 proposes to amend the City’s Ethics Code to eliminate any confusion regarding the definition of “Consolidated City of Jacksonville” and to ensure that meaning includes the boards, commissions, authorities and Constitutional officers of the City.
“The revisions to Chapter 602 of the City’s Ethics Code is an effort to try and tighten up some of the independent agencies,” said Yarborough. “There might need to be more transparency not only with JAA (the Jacksonville Aviation Authority), but all agencies. Anything we can do to make them more transparent and accountable should be pursued. These efforts should be fair and apply to all agencies.”
City Ethics Officer Carla Miller explained to the commission that the legislation will address discrepancies between what is required of the City Government and independent authorities, which include JEA, the Jacksonville Port Authority, JAA and JTA. She pointed out that the legislation will require authority representatives to state if an employee has a financial stake in a bid for contract, list gifts received on a Web site and have lobbyists who contact them register with the Ethics Office. Currently, the legislative and executive branches are required to list gifts on the City’s Web site. The new legislation would require each authority to list gifts its employees receive on a Web site.
“This just makes it uniform across the board for all agencies,” said Miller. “Some may already comply.”
Yarborough visited the commission to request their support of the legislation he is sponsoring and it voted unanimously to support it.
“I would like to thank Councilman Yarborough for taking this on,” said Ethics Commission member Mary Alice Phelan. “If this City is going to be known as the ‘Ethics City,’ then all of its components should be held accountable.”
In other Ethics Commission news:
• Commission member Kirby Oberdorfer was selected by the nominating committee to succeed Gene Filbert as vice chair of the commission. Filbert was selected as the new chair at the commission’s November meeting, replacing Jay Williams.
• The nominating committee also presented the commission with three candidates to choose from for its vacant seat. Scott Shine, Cheryl Grimes and Leslie Goller were selected from a pool of eight applicants to be interviewed by the commission members in January. Shine owns a business consulting firm and has been an advocate for public access to area beaches, Grimes is executive director of The Alliance for World Class Education and Goller is an attorney with Terrell Hogan.
• The commission’s next meeting is Jan. 12.
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