COMBAT, Crime and Ethics - Day 61 of the Jackson County Ethics Blackout

In 1989, the COMmunity Backed Anti-Drug Tax (COMBAT) was approved by Jackson County voters with a mission of "Making substance abuse history...". 2 decades have passed, and literally hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been "made history", but substance abuse appears undiminished as a problem in our community.

Who is in charge of this humongous pot of money that has failed utterly to accomplish its mission for two decades, and supports such lofty goals as paying a favored citizen a thousand dollar to put a sticker on his car (yes, I'm serious)? The Jackson County legislature, the same group of arrogant politicians who have passed an ethics code that can be enforced against everyone but themselves.

Does anyone else here think the spending of twenty million tax dollars without an ethics code is a good idea?

Oh, it gets worse. Much worse.

The COMBAT slush fund gets handled by a three person committee on the legislature. Guess who's on it? Hint: the majority has a rap sheet.

Here is the composition of sterling characters spending twenty million of your tax dollars in 2009 while insisting they should not be held to the Jackson County Ethics Code. The Chair is Dan Tarwater. As far as I know, Dan Tarwater does not have a criminal record, unlike his two friends on the committee. But, as if to assure that he has "street cred" with his two criminal friends, Dan did manage to get into a fistfight with a fellow legislator over money. Unsavory, but unconvicted.

The other two people that the Jackson County legislature has put in charge of spending twenty million tax dollars are actually, literally criminals. James Tindall was convicted of income tax evasion, though he managed to get off on the bribery charges. Henry Rizzo had to go to the Supreme Court to even get on the ballot, because he had "pled guilty to a charge of providing a false statement to a financial institution in 1991".

I think it's great that Rizzo and Tindall have returned to public life and won the voters' trust after breaking the law in matters involving the handling of money.

But does it make any sense at all to trust them to be the majority in a committee that controls twenty million tax dollars? Does it raise some concern in anyone's mind that all three members of this committee voted in favor of exempting themselves from enforcement of the Jackson County Ethics Code?

Please take a moment today and drop an email to members of the Jackson County legislators and tell them that you think that anyone in charge of spending twenty million of your dollars ought to be subject to enforcement of an ethics code, especially if they have a rap sheet. Here are their email addresses:

Scott Burnett - sburnett@jacksongov.org
Theresa Garza Ruiz - tgarza@jacksongov.org
Henry Rizzo - hrizzo@jacksongov.org
Fred Arbanas - farbanas@jacksongov.org
James Tindall - jtindall@jacksongov.org
Dennis Waits - dwaits@jacksongov.org
Dan Tarwater - dtarwater@jacksongov.org
Greg Grounds - ggrounds@jacksongov.org
Bob Spence - bspence@jacksongov.org

Remember to be polite, but firm. All we want is for them to reverse their exemption from the Jackson County Ethics Commission.

Is "Sometime Soon" Good Enough? - Day 60 of the Jackson County Ethics Crisis

Rumors are swirling in the Jackson County Courthouse that the majority of the Legislators know they're in deep trouble with their exclusion from the Ethics Code, and that they will fix the problem in a few months after a new Ethics Commission is appointed. Then, they believe, everything will be fine and dandy, and they won't get clobbered with the ethics issue on the campaign trail. I've heard that from 4 sources with good connections to the legislators.

If I can get a handshake on that from someone in a position to make it happen, should I drop this "Day XX of the Jackson County Ethics Crisis" series?

After a good deal of reflection, the answer is not just "No", but "Hell No". I'm going to keep digging and posting until the Legislators accept enforcement of the Ethics Code, or they are driven from office. I intend to help recruit candidates and expose the misdeeds of incumbents until this thing is resolved.

Here are my reasons for refusing such a handshake deal:

1. I don't trust the legislature enough to rely on a handshake. There are 3 people I truly admire out of the group of 9, and that's not a majority. When it comes to dirty political dealing, I know I'm in way over my head, so I don't think it's safe to stop the heat until the problem is solved. Even if one of the legislators I admire promises to fix this problem, I won't believe that Henry Rizzo will allow it to happen until I see it with my own eyes.

2. Good people are already getting misled. Right now, as we speak, good, ethical people are submitting applications to the Jackson County Ethics Selection Committee under the impression that they won't be dragged into the public eye unless they are finalists. The Selection Committee's website promises "Every effort will be made to maintain the confidentiality of applications, but the applications of those selected as finalists may become public. Finalists will be notified prior to their information being made public." However, under the Sunshine Law, those applications are public, and anybody can go look at them. Promising to make "every effort" to keep something secret when you know you are legally barred from making any effort to do so is simply dishonest, and far beneath the standard of ethics we should expect from anyone connected in any way to the Ethics Commission.

3. I don't want to foster the backroom atmosphere of Jackson County Government. Simply stated, if I reach a secret agreement to accomplish what I want, I would be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

4. There's so much to write about! Every day I post something about the Jackson County Legislature, I get more information sent to me. There are a lot of people in the Jackson County Courthouse with information they want to share, and they know I can be trusted to keep them confidential. (If you're one of them, email me at dan(at symbol)gonemild.com.)

5. We need some turnover on the legislature, and this effort is going to help. The ethics crisis WILL be a millstone around the neck of each and every incumbent legislator in 2010. If the Ethics Crisis is still going on, it will be the dominant theme of the race. Even if they vote in mid-2009 to reverse themselves, I've already talked to at least one consultant who assures me that we can "rebrand" this "Jackson County Ethics Crisis" into the "Jackson County Ethics Blackout" and force the legislators to explain why they supported a 6 month blackout on their own ethical oversight. There's no good way out of this issue for them. There are three legislators I would truly hate to see lose their next race, but I'm confident that at least two of those three will survive the election.

Selection Committee Violating the Law Under a Shroud of Secrecy?! - Day 59 of the Jackson County Ethics Crisis

The Jackson County Legislature's desperate attempts to avoid ethics accountability have dragged more good people into their distasteful mess. On Monday of this week, the Jackson County Ethics Selection Committee, composed of three good and admirable people, announced their intention to violate the law and risk fines and attorneys' fees.

In their announcement soliciting candidates for the Jackson County Ethics Commission, the Selection Committee includes a surprising promise: "Every effort will be made to maintain the confidentiality of applications, but the applications of those selected as finalists may become public. Finalists will be notified prior to their information being made public." The promise is not only surprising because it seems weird for the ethics process to be conducted under cover of darkness, but also because it is a clear violation of Missouri law!

The analysis supporting this conclusion comes from no less a source than Jean Maneke, Missouri's leading expert on the Sunshine Law. She maintains the blog Sunshine in Missouri, an indispensable resource for those of us who care about transparency in government. Yesterday, she posted the following analysis:

The ethics commission is an entity created by the Jackson County Charter, and therefore it is clearly a "public governmental body" as defined by the Sunshine law. That means everything it does must be done in public. The selection committee is established by the county charter. That makes that selection committee a public governmental body, also.

The Sunshine law mandates that all meetings of public governmental bodies must be held in public and all records of public governmental bodies must be open to the public, unless there is a provision in Section 610.021 which allows closure. Case law is absolutely clear, as is the law itself, that the exclusions in Section 610.021 must be read narrowly. Therefore, unless there is a clear provision in Section 610.021 to close a record or meeting, you as a member of the public must be allowed access to that information or meeting.

The commission's website has posted a sentence at present that states "Every effort will be made to maintain the confidentiality of applications, but the applications of those selected as finalists may become public. Finalists will be notified prior to their information being made public."

That is absolutely wrong! There is nothing in the exceptions contained in Section 610.021 that would allow any of this information to be closed. None of these persons are applicants for employment with the county. Each of these appointments are political appointments and for them to claim in any fashion that this would be confidential is legally wrong and an affront to the Jackson County citizens, myself included.

Read the rest of her analysis, including her opinion of the members of the Jackson County legislature, in this scathing post.

Sadly, all this is completely predictable, and completely the fault of the Jackson County Legislature. All the shenanigans surrounding the resignations and the rewrites of the Ethics Code to exempt the legislators from its enforcement are the fault of a couple legislators who resent public accountability. The thirst for secrecy that drove the legislature to avoid accountability to the "old" Jackson County Ethics Commission is the same backroom preference that is guiding the Jackson County Ethics Selection Committee now.

Secrecy is not healthy for government. Ethical government does not crave secrecy. The Jackson County legislature craves secrecy. Why?

(MUCH more is on its way in this series, including the announcement of an Ethics opponent for Henry Rizzo, a call for the Selection Commission to include a disclaimer on its solicitation of candidates warning them of their duty to ignore the ethics ordinance's provisions that violate the Charter, a profile of each district and solicitation of a pro-ethics candidate for each, and a potential Ethics Initiative Campaign. The Ethics Crisis Series will continue until the Legislature accepts local enforcement of the Ethics Code, or each of the legislators who voted for it is driven from office.)

Jackson County Ethics Crisis Day 58 - Ethics Without Rules

Does anybody in Jackson County governance care about rules?

Yesterday, the Jackson County Ethics Selection Committee issued a press release announcing its intent to violate the Jackson County Charter by choosing an ethics committee after its authority to do so has lapsed. It shows just how far and deep the disdain for ethics runs in Jackson County that we cannot even choose our Ethics Commissioners according to the rules.

It's really quite clear. This is what the dusty, ignored Jackson County Charter has to say on the matter:

. . . within thirty days of the occurrence of a vacancy on the ethics commission, the selection board shall fill the vacancy. If for any reason the ethics commission selection board fails to timely fill any vacancy or position on the ethics commission, the executive shall appoint a qualified person to fill the vacancy or position.

In legal parlance, shall has a definite meaning - it means "must". For the Jackson County Ethics Selection Committee to validly appoint someone, they must do it within 30 days of the vacancy.

By contrast, here's the casual approach the Jackson County Ethics Selection Committee adopts to fill vacancies that started 58 days ago:

Applications for the Ethics Commission will be accepted throughout the month of February 2009 or until the commission is filled.

We hope to complete selection during the month of March 2009 or shortly thereafter.

Really?!?! They "hope" to get around to providing Jackson County with an Ethics Commission a quarter year or more after the first vacancy occurred, and they won't even solidly commit to that?

The simple truth is that the Jackson County Ethics Selection Committee is acting far beyond its scope under the oft-ignored Jackson County Charter. It no longer has any legal power to appoint members to the Jackson County Ethics Commission.

The bottom line of governmental ethics is following the rules, and the entire Jackson County ethics system has been corrupted to the point that nobody is even pretending to follow the rules anymore. It's a sad day in Jackson County when the Jackson County Charter is willfully ignored by the people it depended upon to uphold it.

Has the legislature's intransigence poisoned the ethical well of Jackson County? Can any ethical citizen in good faith agree to participate in a sham ethics commission, illegally appointed, and barred by ordinance from fulfilling the duties set forth in the Charter?

Too Much Cooperation? - Day 54 of the Jackson County Ethics Crisis

Cooperation is generally a good thing, but it has its limits. In the legislative world, too much agreement is a red flag that something is amiss. If a roomful of elected officials sworn to represent their constituents don't ever disagree, they are either not facing genuine issues or not having the courage to dissent.

Over the first 4 meetings of the 2009 Jackson County Legislature, Bob Spence is the only legislator to vote "no" on anything. No other legislator has broken from the herd even once. (To be completely fair, as always, I should point out that Fred Arbanas abstained from a vote to congratulate him on his birthday, and Scott Burnett abstained from the vote electing him Chair. So at least two legislators have a vocabulary that exceeds "aye". It's also worth noting that Henry Rizzo didn't abstain from the vote electing him Vice Chair, secure in his knowledge that ethics rules don't apply to the Jackson County legislature.)

During that time, the Legislature has spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars, and changed the law in a fashion that will almost certainly cause children to be harmed in Jackson County, as well as property damage.

More tellingly, nobody has dared introduce an ordinance reversing the Legislature's anti-ethical exemption of itself from the Jackson County Ethics Code. I had correspondence with one legislator who agrees with me that the exemption should be reversed, but he won't introduce such a measure unless he knows it will pass. Sadly, going on record supporting ethics is less important than avoiding the wrath of the legislative leadership.

Folks, a good legislature is marked by spirited debate and respectful differences. A bad legislature is marked by fearful cooperation and gutless orthodoxy. A legislature that agrees on everything is not doing its job.

The Jackson County legislature is not doing its job.

Why Does the Star Ignore the County? - Day 52 of the Jackson County Ethics Crisis

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a savvy former politician who told me that when he was being interviewed by TV people, and he said something he didn't want broadcast, he would drop an F-bomb into the sentence. Video editing capabilities of the day and pressing deadlines kept him out of the news when he didn't want to be there.

I have discovered a similar trick that works to keep the KC Star from putting something in the paper. Just mention "Jackson County". The Star will lose interest and flee from the story.

I attended an introductory meeting for an unofficial committee focused on city business last week, and I was not at all surprised to see two, count 'em two, Star writers there. I asked one of them afterward why they double-teamed a city issue, but nobody was writing about the fact that the Jackson County Ethics Commission was NOT meeting, because nobody had been timely named to it.

Similarly, there is nobody writing about the fact that this is Day 52 of the Jackson County Ethics Crisis, with the Legislators continuing in their refusal to be governed by a local ethics commission.

It's even reached the point that the Star downplays Jackson County issues on the Prime Buzz. Recently, I did two posts in one morning - one was about a minor argument I had with another local blogger, and the other was an analysis of whether anyone would agree to serve on the Jackson County Ethics Commission, and raising the question of whether it was even ethical to serve on it while it was barred from taking on the tasks assigned to it in the Jackson County Charter. The Prime Buzz's Blog Watch column ignored the post about an important issue for Jackson County governance and wrote about the other.

Who, at the Star, covers the City? Lynn Horsley, Deanne Smith (who I understand has a vested interest in keeping County coverage positive), Yael Abouhalkah, and anyone else with a spare moment and a scrap of paper. Who, at the Star, covers the County? Well, let's see - Mike Mansur does a decent job when he has the chance, but it's only one of his many assignments.

The result is that you have the Star double-teaming a committee meeting, but ignoring the Jackson County Ethics Crisis. The result is that the Star didn't even mention that the Jackson County Ethics Commission had resigned until weeks after it had happened. The result is that the Star STILL has not reported that the time has lapsed for the ethics committee selection board to appoint replacements, with the result that Mike Sanders now has that duty.

For some reason, the Star has decided that it should not flip over the rocks in Jackson County government. It's kind of sad, because the more I look, the more I find. I'd love to see what a real journalist could do with these stories.

Day 50 of Jackson County Ethics Crisis - Will Citizens be Forced to Use Initiative Petitions to Get the Ethical Governance Promised in Our Charter?

Jackson County Government has been in an ethics crisis for 50 days, and the crisis shows no sign of fading. Instead, it worsens.

Way back in the beginning of December, Sly James resigned from the Jackson County Ethics Commission. His resignation started a 30 day time frame for a new appointment by the ethics committee selection board. Unfortunately, that board failed to appoint a replacement in time, so, under the County Charter, Mike Sanders is now the only person with the authority to make that appointment. Similarly, the remaining ethics commissioners each resigned before Christmas, and the 30 day period for their replacement has passed, as well.

In the time when Jackson County has been without an Ethics Commission, the Jackson County Legislature has run amok. First, it passed an ordinance which illegally purports to rob the Commission of its role in overseeing Jackson County Ethics. As if to demonstrate its utter contempt for ethical standards, the County Legislature then selected as its Chair a member who has already been fined for a state-level ethics violation.

Why has Mike Sanders failed to appoint a new Ethics Commission? Probably because ethical citizens are hesitating to join a Commission which is directed by the Charter to do that which is barred by ordinance. It's an untenable position, and I certainly understand why good people would not want to be a part of an atmosphere that is rapidly descending from unethical to actively anti-ethical.

Is there a solution to this ethical toxicity created by the Jackson County legislature? We have a completely empty Ethics Commission, and it appears that nobody will fill those seats. At this stage, even if Mike Sanders were able to find willing participants, what kind of credibility would they have? For all concerned, it might be best to leave the Commission vacant as a symbol of the Legislature's disdain for ethical standards.

If the Jackson County Legislature persists in its rejection of local ethical oversight, citizens have two methods of fighting back for their Charter. As I've mentioned before, replacing the incumbents in 2010 may be relatively easy and bring a bunch of fresh faces to the legislative body.

The second method, and one that is becoming increasingly attractive, is an Initiative Petition. With under 7000 valid signatures on Petitions, we could force a vote in Jackson County about whether we want our Jackson County legislators to be subject to local ethical oversight and local ethical standards.

If we time this correctly, we can gather the signatures on spring weekends and get the issue on the ballot in August. It's going to take a lot of work and a bit of money, but this is the sort of project that ought to catch fire. There are a lot of people who knocked on doors and organized successfully for the November elections, and new potential candidates for office should be eager to align themselves early with the pro-ethics side of Jackson County.

It's day 50 in Jackson County's ethics crisis. In the coming days and weeks, I'll be posting more about this problem. Stay tuned.

Obama Less Ethical than Rizzo?

While the rest of the country has been celebrating the election and inauguration of President Obama, Jackson Countians are stuck with the troubling realization that President Obama is less ethical than the sterling characters who rule the Jackson County Legislature. On his first day in office, President Obama suffered the ethical lapse of imposing new ethics standards and making them apply to himself, and enforceable by an entity that is part of the federal budget. Close observers weren't caught off guard, though, in that he committed the same gaffe in the Senate, when he joined in the push to increase transparency and ban lobbyist gifts, again with federal enforcement.

According to the ethical whiz kids at the Jackson County Courthouse, federal ethical oversight is unethical. Just as the Untouchables argue that they cannot be investigated by a group that is part of their budget (ignoring the Sheriff's department, the Prosecutor's Office and the County Courts), the same logic would demand that we ban local oversight of our federal government, as well. Perhaps we can get the government of Canada or Mexico to oversee our ethics, if local oversight is too corrupting for the sensitive souls on the legislature. Or perhaps the U.N. should step in and take control.

Does that sound right to you? It's the exact same argument that our Jackson County legislators are trying to make.

Somehow, I have more faith in President Obama than in our Untouchables.

Jackson County Ethics - Is Someone Drinking on the Job?

Does someone on the Jackson County Legislature have a serious drinking problem?

One of the mysteries surrounding the Jackson County Legislature's violation of the County Charter has been their motivation for making themselves "Untouchables" for the Jackson County Ethics Code. They claim that they are covered by the Missouri Ethics Commission, but informed citizens know that the MEC is strictly limited by law to "enforcement of conflict of interest and lobbying laws (RSMo 105.450-498) and campaign finance disclosure laws (RSMo 130)." The MEC does not and will not enforce the Jackson County Ethics Code, and anyone who says they will is either lying or misinformed. Even if the MEC wanted to, Missouri law does not give it that power.

Obviously, there are major differences between the Jackson County Ethics Code (here it is in pdf format) and the Missouri Statutes policed by the MEC, but yesterday evening a political insider asked me for specifics. Beyond the point that one is enforced locally and in public, while the other gets enforced behind closed Jefferson City doors, I pointed out that they differ in various specifics. I was unprepared to answer the question forcefully, though, so, when I got home, I started looking at some of the differences.

There are a bunch, of course, but the one that jumped off the pages last night was this one:

In addition to being a violation of other laws, it is also a violation of this chapter for any public servant to: . . . Be found guilty of violating the County's policy prohibiting the possession or consumption by employees of alcohol or any controlled or illegal substance in any County facility, vehicle, or work site, including lunch periods and rest breaks; prohibiting public servants from driving or reporting to work, performing work, or visiting a work site while under the influence of alcohol or any controlled or illegal substance.

Setting aside the obvious fact that this provision completely demolishes Rizzo's argument that the County Legislators dislike "double jeopardy", this might be the key to understanding the whole thing.

The MEC will not investigate allegations of drinking on the job.

As a determined advocate for Jackson County ethics, I knew that it would help my cause to come up with a term that encapsulated the controversy in a phrase. A couple weeks ago, I tried out "Unethical Enablers", because the legislators had made it much easier for future, less exemplary politicians to get away with unethical behavior. At the time, I had no idea that their behavior could also be explained in terms of enabling other problems, but, wow, there it is. The Jackson County legislature has exempted itself from an Ethics Code that encompasses drinking on the job, or showing up at a Legislative session drunk.

Why?

Now that the voters are paying attention, will they amend their ordinance so that they are governed by the Jackson County Ethics Code, and overseen by the Jackson County Ethics Commission?

(Note on comments - this is not the place to speculate about whether any specific elected official has an issue, and I will delete all such comments.)

Who Will Appoint the Jackson County Ethics Commission? Is it Even Ethical to Serve on it?

Is it ethical to serve on a body which is statutorily prohibited from doing what the County Charter orders it to do? Is it ethical to participate in a sham when your predecessors resigned to expose the sham?

Those questions are probably being pondered as we speak by a few citizens of Jackson County. In fact, it may be that the County is having sufficient trouble finding willing participants that the duty of filling the seats has shifted from the Ethics Commission Selection Board to Mike Sanders, the Jackson County Executive.

According to the relevant Charter provision,

There shall be an ethics commission selection board, which shall appoint all of the appointees to the ethics commission. This board shall consist of the executive director of the Mid-America Regional Council, the dean of the Henry W. Bloc (sic) School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri - Kansas City, and the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City. Within thirty days of the effective date of this section, the selection board shall appoint five residents of the county to the ethics commission. The commission members shall select their own chairman. Thereafter, within thirty days of the occurrence of a vacancy on the ethics commission, the selection board shall fill the vacancy. If for any reason the ethics commission selection board fails to timely fill any vacancy or position on the ethics commission, the executive shall appoint a qualified person to fill the vacancy or position.

The first ethics commission resignation came in early December, so the selection board is no longer empowered to make the appointment, and the duty falls to Jackson County Executive. I'm not certain of the resignation dates of the others, but I believe they were completed before Christmas (though the Star did not report on the resignations until weeks later). It appears that for at least one, and perhaps all of the commissioners, the ethics commission board has failed to timely fill the vacancy, and now the executive shall appoint a qualified person.

It's no wonder that the selection board has faced a challenge in trying to fill the Commission. The Charter grants the Ethics Commission the power to hold legislators accountable, while a recent ordinance passed by the Legislators purports to strip that power away.

If a good, ethical citizen wants to take a seat on the Commission, his or her first duty will be to sue the Legislators to reverse their illegal, Charter-violating ordinance exempting themselves from local ethical oversight. If, on the other hand, you agree to simply ignore the Jackson County Charter, you are exposing yourself to clear questions about your ethical judgment and the legitimacy of your role.

Who wants to step into a mess like that?

Greg Grounds Fights Dirty - The Funding Issue

The Jackson County Legislature has pulled out all the stops in a desperate attempt to make their refusal to accept ethical oversight seem less offensive. One of the more shameful bits of misdirection they've employed, though, is a claim that they've excused themselves from local oversight because the Jackson County Ethics Commission ought not to "be subject to the people they are investigating not funding them."

What?!?!

For those not paying attention, Legislator Greg Grounds, in one fell swoop, impugned the ethics of the citizens serving on the Ethics Commission, accused his fellow Jackson County legislators of corrupt behavior, and misled the Jackson County voters.

Let's talk a little bit about the "funding" that Greg Grounds thinks he can use to control the Ethics Commission. How much do you think the Ethics Commissioners are profiting from their work on the Ethics Commission? If you read his nasty little insinuation, you probably imagine that they are paid something in the mid five figures to clean up after our legislators, but you would be horribly mistaken.

The members of the Jackson County Ethics Commission do not get paid for their service. Indeed, after they angered the legislators by holding a hearing, the County responded in petty fashion by refusing to pay their parking. While there are some other costs associated with the Jackson County Ethics Commission, any claim that the Commission is in thrall to the dollars is a red herring - a stinking, rotten red herring that Greg Grounds should be ashamed of tossing into public debate.

His argument also falsely impugns the ethics of the Ethics Commissioners. Does he really think that the Ethics Commission would "go easy" on the legislature because of a few dollars of funding, which will never, ever, come near to them personally? His suggestion that the legislature would actually have the guts to refuse to fund a legitimate investigation is also a huge insult to what I truly hope is a less corrupt body than he implies.

Finally, Greg Grounds' opinion that the legislature buys off whomever it funds is insulting to the law enforcement and court system that it does fund. By Grounds' logic, he should be immune from prosecution in the Jackson County Circuit Court if he embarks on a crime spree. The prosecutors would be unable to prosecute him, because they are funded by the legislature, and the courts would not be able to convict him, because their personnel are on the Jackson County payroll. In Greg Grounds' self-important mind, the jail could not dare to hold someone of his stature.

It is truly sad to see a Jackson County legislator believe that the entire mechanism of County Government is controlled by his almighty dollar. It is truly insulting to see a Jackson County legislator threaten a volunteer board with a cut in pay. Most of all, though, it is infuriating to see that Greg Grounds and his fellow legislators think we're dumb enough to fall for it.

Is It Time to Give Up on Jackson County Ethics Legislation?

It's been a little more than a month since the Jackson County Legislature violated the Jackson County Charter and passed ethics legislation that purports to exclude the Legislature from the jurisdiction of the Ethics Commission. It's been weeks since the Ethics Commission responded to that "untouchable" approach by resigning, and sometime soon a committee (not the Legislature) will appoint a new committee (if they can find people willing to play along with an illegal sham of an Ethics Commission). It's a New Year. We have a new Chair of the Legislature. Is it time to let bygones be bygones, and move forward?

Not just no, hell no!

This is a battle that is going to drag on, even if the bodies won't hit the floor until 2010. The traditional media have started to pay attention to it. Rumor has it that at least a couple legislators are feeling like they were lied to when they were assured that it was legal, and that the Missouri Ethics Commission had the authority to enforce it. They don't want to take the risk of drawing a strong challenge in their next election, having already tainted themselves with a permissive attitude toward unethical behavior.

Here's the end game on this flap. I intend to focus on the Jackson County Legislature, its ethical shortcomings, and how to challenge each of the "Untouchables" until they reverse themselves on violating the Charter. I've talked to a couple well-connected people who share my disgust for what the Legislature has done, and they have promised to make a few calls to people who might be interested in running for the Legislature on a pro-Ethics platform. The next round of elections for the Jackson County Legislature is promising to be a battle between the Pro-Ethics candidates and the Untouchable Incumbents.

I won't predict that each and every incumbent will lose in the next race. Based on what I've seen and heard, though, I will issue my prediction today that, unless the Jackson County Legislature submits to local ethical oversight, at least 4 and perhaps 5 will, in fact, be driven from office. There are some bright people out there inspired to get involved in politics, and the Jackson County Legislature provides the next golden opportunity to run for office on an anti-incumbent, pro-ethics platform.

Some entrenched incumbents are going to lose their seats, and almost every one of them will face a serious and very expensive challenge, unless they reverse themselves on the Ethics Legislation, and do it soon.

Here are my predictions on this matter. The furor about this will not fade away. Scott Burnett's term as Chair of the Jackson County Legislature will be dogged by questions raised by the refusal to submit to local oversight, and the violation of the Charter. Several new members of the Ethics Commission will resign after questions are raised about whether it is ethical to serve on an Ethics Commission that is being barred from following the Charter that creates it. Other blogs and other media will join in the fun. Sometime over the next few months, someone will file an ethics complaint against one of the legislators, and the Ethics Commission will refuse to hear it, and will forward it to the Missouri Ethics Commission, which will also refuse to hear it. Regardless of the merits of the complaint, citizens will be outraged by the Untouchable legislators. A few of the legislators will develop a conscience and file legislation that will reestablish the oversight called for in the Charter. Rizzo, Burnett, Tarwater and a couple other "old school" will persist in arguing that they are above local oversight, and new candidates will start making their plans known. It will be a bloodbath.

And we WILL get a Jackson County legislature that respects ethics.