Senator Dede Feldman spoke at a Bernalillo County Commission public meeting last night.

Bernalillo County Commissioner Maggie Hart Stebbins is fronting an effort to rewrite the Bernalillo County Ethics Ordinance.

It is time. The existing ordinance was written in the last century and has not been reviewed since.

The attendance at the meeting was disappointingly small.

State Senator Dede Feldman introduced herself to me before the meeting began. I told her my name and identified myself as the writer of Diogenes' six.

It didn't seem to ring a bell;
it was crushed I was.

We discussed briefly, ethics reform in state government. She has a long record of efforts to pass ethics reform legislation.

I expressed my hope that this would be the year that meaningful ethics reform would take place.

I offered that what we really needed to do in that regard,
was to elect Rep Janice Arnold-Jones as governor.

Oops.

Senator Feldman is apparently a Denish supporter,
a fact that would not have been lost on me,
had I thought it through a little further.

Commissioner Hart Stebbins listened attentively to those
who chose to speak at the forum. You can tell that her heart is in reform.

She, like others carrying ethics reform legislation, will find
it a hard row to hoe. And, a rather lonely one as well.

Sometimes I wonder at the lack of public involvement and
support for ethics reform.

I think that most people have given up the cause as hopeless,

... a self fulfilling prophecy.




photo Mark Bralley