Bernalillo County "revives" ethics panel

According to an article in this morning's Journal link sub req

The county commission has appointed two new members to
fill vacate seats on the ethics board, which has been "dormant"
since 1999.

According to the article;

The five-member board is mandated by county ordinance but hasn't met for almost a decade. To get it going again, county commissioners on Tuesday appointed former county manager Juan Vigil and optometrist Francis Duffy Jr. to fill the remaining vacancies.

The seats were filled without informing stakeholders that the issue was even on the table.

County Commissioner Alan Armijo is quoted;

"The attorneys realized we didn't have anybody in place for (accepting and "... investigating complaints about employees or officials accused of violating the county's ethics code, which prohibits conflicts of interest, acceptance of certain gifts and use of public property for personal benefit.")."

No body noticed that there is not, and has not been an ethics panel since 1999.
No body noticed. It was finally picked up by "the attorneys."

And ethics reform is not really ethics reform anyway.
Looking at Armijo's statement, it becomes obvious that ethical reform doesn't mean picking any one of a number of legitimate codes of ethical conduct, and then simply establishing honest accountability to that standard.

In our culture of corruption, ethics reform means; identifying a few of the most egregious and indefensible examples of ethical misconduct, and then prohibiting them, and only them.

Faith in the ethics board is reasonable shaken by a closing comment from Armijo;

"The board will meet soon to approve resolutions outlining how it will operate. But after that, it might never meet again if there are no complaints filed ..."

Do you really suppose that there is no need to file any complaint of ethical misconduct by any county employee, on almost a daily basis? If complaints are not being filed, it is for another reason than the fact that there is no ethical misconduct in county government; this is after all New Mexico, which has a national reputation for its "culture of (political) corruption".

Has anyone looked for evidence of a "culture of fear of retribution and retaliation" against those who file complaints against their superiors? Is there whistle blower protection?

Jumping on board with her support for the ethics commission was County Commissioner, Teresa "don't hold my son accountable" Cordova who said; "I think it's always good to have measures of accountability."

Gee, ya think?

It is not apparently, a good idea to have absolute accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, for county employees; in particular the high ranking ones.

Is there really no other candidate to sit on a county ethics board than a former county manager? What are the chances that a former county manager owes a few favors here and there? Is no one supposed to notice that one of the good ol' boys has been placed in charge of holding good ol' boys honestly accountable for their conduct and competence?

Talk about the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Apparently public confidence in the system doesn't play,
which explains why no complaint has been filed since 1999
and why the panel, after it's organizational meeting is likely to

"... never meet again."