By Barb Pert Templeton
As part of their continued clean-up of the city charter, following a vote by the citizens to do so during the general election in November, the Marine City Commission approved an amended ethics policy at it’s Feb. 6 meeting.
City Attorney Robert Davis said the city charter calls for an ethics policy, he’s been working on it and admitted it’s a difficult policy to write. In particular the enforcement of the ethics policy section.
“You start throwing around words about acting in an honest and truthful matter it can become rather difficult wording to put in place,” Davis said. “I think what we did here is we took the state ethics policy issued by our governor down through Dana Nessel as a template and we took other documents that we already had in place out here and we looked at ethics policy from various other communities.”
“I tried to present to you what fits your community,” Davis added.
Commissioner Sean O’Brien was pleased with the new ethics policy written by City Attorney Robert Davis.
The policy the commission was about to approve could be changed or altered anytime the commission felt it was necessary, he said.
Commissioner Sean O’Brien said wanted to note the section under Other Prohibited Conduct, Part 6, page 9 number 11 of the 15 specific items.
“Page 9 number 11, I know that sentence by heart because I struggled with that one,” Davis said.
Number 11 in the policy read: Engaging in an act, actions or other conduct contrary to honesty, justice or good morals; or an act or actions of moral turpitude.
“I love this document, I love this code of ethics and I think this board needs this document in place,” O’Brien said, noting that he understood how difficult it was to write such a document.
He said honesty, justice and good morals will be one of those things that can be tough in a community because you have people with all different religions who might disagree on who’s being moral and there are arguments on what justice is in society.
“And certainly, I think every politician has been accused, at least at some point, of being dishonest, I think it’s a right of passage,” O’Brien said.
Davis said actually he was proposing the sentence be changed to read: “engaging in an act, action or other conduct contrary to generally excepted decency.” And to leave out the other terms: honesty, justice and morals.
“I understood from reading other cases and criticism of other policies in other communities that those words are subject to various interpretations based on individuals’ backgrounds, their religions, their belief systems,” Davis said. “So, I think we can all appreciate general decency.”
Commissioner Rita Roehrig said Under General Policy Statement #2 on page 4 it states “all public servants shall treat all citizens of the city with courtesy and impartiality.
“What about visitors, or lawyers or other people that aren’t citizens of the city shouldn’t we extend the same treatment to them?” Roehrig asked.
“We could say shall treat all citizens and all members of the public,” Davis replied.
“That sounds good, thank-you,” Roehrig said.
Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Hendrick said she just wanted to note that the new policy is “a big improvement from the last one” that the city had in place.
David reminded the commission that the policy remains a flexible document that can be changed at any time and if there are questions going forward just bring them to the meeting table.
To read the ethics policy in its entirety visit the Marine City website at cityofmarinecity.org
