After months of delay, the Board of Supervisors has revived a
plan to form an ethics committee that could look into campaign
complaints and hopes to have the ground rules set within a
month.
Hollister – After months of delay, the Board of Supervisors has revived a plan to form an ethics committee that could look into campaign complaints and hopes to have the ground rules set within a month.
“I don’t think there are very many counties our size that have ethics committees,” Board Chairman Reb Monaco joked to a laughing audience at yesterday’s supervisors’ meeting.
The board of supervisors has been discussing forming an ethics committee in San Benito County since February of last year, and in November directed the creation of an ad hoc ethics committee. In the months since, Monaco explained, the committee “kind of fell off the radar.”
“I don’t think there was any one reason, I just think that other issues came up that were more pressing,” he said.
While nothing is set in stone yet, the board’s campaign ethics subcommittee does have a few basic ideas as to how the final committee will function.
“Basically what the original intent was, was that if someone felt a candidate had put out false information, they could come to the committee to look into it. And that’s still the intent,” said Supervisor Pat Loe, who along with Chairman Reb Monaco is putting together the bylaws for the committee. “If there are shades of gray, at least the public will know that they’re gray. They’ll know the truth and they’ll know how dark the shades of gray are.”
Supervisors also will decide whether the committee will have the power to investigate and enforce ethical conduct in the county.
Currently, Loe and Monaco are hoping the ethics committee will be made up of 10 elected officials from the community. They could include the County Superintendent of Schools, a representative from the Elections Office, a retired or former judge and members from the Hollister and San Juan Bautista City Councils.
Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz, who himself was narrowly elected to the board under accusations of voter fraud last March, told Monaco and Loe Tuesday he was uncomfortable with their proposal to fill the committee with elected officials.
“I just have a real issue with the make-up of the advisory committee. I’d like to see citizens at large rather than elected officials on the committee,” De La Cruz said. “My real issue is, are we creating another bureaucracy? The make-up of the committee needs to be unbiased, objective. There needs to be no affiliation with any political party.”
Monaco told De La Cruz Tuesday the decision to form a committee of elected officials was not meant to intimidate average citizens who felt ethical violations had been committed by candidates, but rather to make sure the committee is made up of people who have been involved with elections in the past.
The potential cost to the county for establishing an ethics committee are still unknown, according to a report from the county but should result in “minimal expenses related to the costs of publishing public notices and additional staff time for assisting the committee.” Deputy District Attorney Darren Bogie told the board Tuesday the final cost to the county could be similar to the cost of forming a civil grand jury.
“That’s one of the things that I had concerns about, the financial impacts of it,” said Monaco. “Are we going to have to hire another person to oversee this? We have not determined any of that yet. Pat (Loe) and I are going to look at all the ramifications of what the impact will be and what the bylaws will be, and then we’ll just revisit it again from where we left off on (April) 26th.”
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at [email protected].
