ETHICS: COUNCIL TO REVIEW NEW REGULATION

In an attempt to curb conflicts of interest, Cape Girardeau City Councilman David Barklage has initiated an ethics law applicable to the city council.

At the council's Feb. 20 meeting, Barklage asked City Attorney Warren Wells to draft a law that would deter potential conflicts of interest. The law would:

Prohibit those businesses council members have an interest in from contracting with the city.

Require public disclosure of council members' property holdings, licenses, and business ownership.

Specifically prohibit disclosure of confidential information from nonpublic executive council sessions.

Barklage said conflicts of interest have plagued the council in the past and hurt its credibility. He said Sunday the ordinance would inhibit the potential for conflicts and would avoid the "politicization" of ethics enforcement.

"As long as you allow businesses that council members have an interest in to conduct business with the city, it already gives the appearance of a conflict," he said.

Barklage said city laws formerly prohibited city officials through companies they either partially or fully owned from doing business with the city. He said the law was changed in the mid-1980s when the city council redrafted the code of ordinances.

The councilman said he favored returning to the previous law.

"The most simple thing is to not allow business that council members have an interest in to contract for city work," he said.

Barklage said Cape Girardeau has sufficient contractors available to assure reasonable bids on city projects. He said returning to the ban from city work for businesses that council members have an interest in would protect the council's credibility.

"Let's say I bid to do a contract with the city," Barklage said. "The bidding process may be fair, but how comfortable are code enforcement people going to be enforcing the codes knowing that I have authority over their boss. There's no way to avoid a conflict.

"Competitors also feel they can't be treated fairly, and that undermines the whole council's credibility."

Barklage said that by requiring officials to disclose publicly their business interests and holdings, enforcement of the ethics measure will be shifted from fellow council members to the public.

"The problem you have with conflict of interest is the council is not fit to judge itself," he said. "If you're on the opposite side of a conflict, you're being political, and if you're on the same side, you're in collusion.

"So what happens is, you tend in most cases not to act. No one wants to be in that situation."

Barklage said public disclosure allows the press and the public to monitor city officials for conflicts of interest. He said city council members should have to disclose any business they have an interest in, but not the amount of that interest.

"I think conflict is a conflict, regardless of the amount," he said. "Disclosure lets each member establish his own standards and lets the public be the judge. Since we're elected by the public, they should be the final judge."

Barklage said he doubted the conflict of interest law he's proposing would deter potential candidates whose business interests would be part of the public record from seeking election.

"A town of our size, I don't think that would happen," he said. "There aren't that many secrets anyway, and you're not asking people to disclose how much interest they have in a company. That, I think, would be more sensitive."

Barklage said the existing city ethics law is vague and too weak in terms of enforcement provisions. He said that other than the political consequences of council members monitoring each other, city staff members also are unlikely to charge a council member with violating the conflict of interest law.

"The city attorney, whose employment is approved by the city council, is not very likely to call down a council member on a conflict of interest," he said.

Barklage said he first became interested in revising the city's conflict of interest policy about two years ago, when he and a number of attorneys and "people involved with government" drafted a 12-page ordinance.

"To me, that was not very practical," he said. "I wanted something that would do the same thing, but would be less complicated.

Barklage said the very problem he wanted to address in the law prevented him from proposing the new ethics measure sooner.

"Quite honestly, there have been a lot of questions of conflicts of interest on the council," he said. "It's very hard to bring it up and have it remain in the proper context when you're in the middle of a conflict.

"Now, because I'm leaving the council, I don't have a political interest at stake."

Barklage's council term his second will expire in April and he won't seek re-election.

Over the past several years, the city council mired itself in a number of controversies that involved perceived conflicts of interest. In one of the most volatile cases, a split council voted 4-3 last year to "reprimand" Mayor Gene Rhodes for failing to disclose his interest in an asphalt company that was awarded a city paving contract.

"I think the entire council has been frustrated in the past when they've been put in the middle of a conflict of interest by anybody," Barklage said. "I think the council would want to develop an answer to keep us from being embroiled in these issues in the future."