"Ethics" Ordinance - Subject of 1/28 City Commission Workshop

WORK IN PROGRESS

This is the version of Commissioner Jennings' "Pay to Play" Ordinance - used interchangeably with "Ethics" Ordinance during the campaign. In September, at the beginning of the campaign season, she rolled this out on to a City Commission agenda. It was defeated on a vote of 2-3, with Mayor Clemens, Vice-Mayor Lowe and Commissioner Vespo casting the dissenting votes. The reason for turning it down was a combination of the need for a panel to review ethical standards in all of city operations and actions and potential unintended consequences of this piecemeal ordinance. Really it wasn't turned down specifically, rather staff was directed to put the item on a future workshop agenda. That will be taking place Wednesday of this week at 5:30 p.m., City Hall Conference room

It should be noted that during the recent campaign, Commissioner Cara Jennings seemed never to fail bringing up that then Commissioner Vespo voted down an ethics ordinance. This exaggeration played well for Commissioner Jennings on the campaign trail - even though she wasn't running against then Commissioner Vespo. It helped seal the fate so that Commissioner Jennings' chosen candidate would gather the laurels of office after a run-off election. We can discuss the ethics of this if you wish, but for now let's look at this ordinance is a little more detail.



By the way, it was the September 16th meeting when this item was last discussed. See Commissioner Jennings' press release on her campaign website dated September 15th. And this wasn't a political act?


You know, legally speaking, leases are contracts. And while Commissioner Jennings' talks about preventing big business from influencing campaigns and decisions by candidates that receive their large (read $500 bundled contributions), a "professional business entity" as defined here would also include local businesses and individuals - including any owner having more than a 10 percent share in that business. Now I could very easily pull up the itemized special interest contributions for both Commissioners Jennings and Mulvehill campaigns here. But they are easy enough to access through the link at the top, right hand side of the blog. Suffice to say, Mulvehill's campaign received many contributions from tenants at the beach. Both campaigns received siginificant donations from Charles Celi - individual who is appealing the Gulfstream decisions. But, I guess lawsuits aren't necessarily contracts.