Council Considers Changes to Ethics Ordinance

The Rockville City Council and other elected officials in Montgomery County and across Maryland are currently weighing the merits of new ethics code requirements passed by the General Assembly in 2010 and set to take effect locally next year.

The new requirements mandate that local ethics ordinances be at least as stringent as the state ordinance, which passed the General Assembly unanimously during the 2010 session. In many municipalities, including Rockville, elected officials will now have to disclose more information about property holdings and potential conflicts of interest.

Rockville City Councilwoman Bridget Donnell Newton said at the council meeting on Monday that she thinks the new requirements ask too much of part-time politicians and may deter others from seeking office. 

"If you own one-tenth of one percent of Coca-Cola, why should you have to write that down? It wouldn’t really matter, even though Coke may be sold in the vending machines in the city. If you’re not making that decision, then you shouldn’t have to disclose that," Donnell Newton argued. "People may own something in Rehoboth and should they have to write that down? That has nothing to do with what’s going on in Rockville."

The Maryland Municipal League is currently appointing a subcommittee to study the issue. Jim Peck, the director of research for the Municipal League, said he anticipates the subcommittee will recommend some amendments to the state ordinance that will lift the burden of disclosure for part-time elected officials. Those proposed amendments will be sent to the General Assembly for consideration by mid-February.

"People feel uncomfortable sharing information about their individual finances, how much they make, what their house is worth," Peck said. "I suspect that’s a large part of it - a general discomfort to disclose what people believe is personal information."

Roughly 50 percent of municipalities, mainly smaller towns and cities around the state, have been granted an exemption from the new law. Larger cities, like Rockville, were supposed to adopt the new changes on Oct. 1., but Peck explained the State Ethics Commission has allowed extensions on that deadline as long as the municipalities are actively working on the issue.

Not everyone feels a need to change the state legislation, though. Rockville City Councilman Tom Moore said he thinks the new disclosure requirements are appropriate.

"We talk a lot about transparency and accountability and we often talk about it in terms of how other people can be accountable and transparent and this is our chance to be accountable and transparent. A lot of this stuff is really intrusive ... but I think it’s appropriate for us, as elected officials, to disclose our conflicts until it hurts. I’m not inclined to recommend any changes to the state law. It seems to me if it’s good enough for the state, it’s good enough for us," Moore said.

"We hold a public trust. Whether we do it part time or full time, we are elected to very important positions. We control a $107 million budget and we control the laws that people in this city live by and there is a heavy amount of disclosure that I think is appropriate to go along with that responsibility," he said.

The Rockville City Council will revisit the new ethics code requirements at its meeting on Jan. 9. The 2012 General Assembly session begins Jan. 11.