From Delmarva Dealings: Don’t File an Ethics Complaint in Cecil County

From Delmarva Dealings —–

Here in Wicomico County, we’ve seen our share of frivolous ethics complaints lately.  That said, they are part of the price you pay in an attempt to receive good local government.  It appears that the people who govern Cecil County aren’t too interested in that.  Perhaps that is why they attempt to intimidate those who file ethics complaints.

Del. Mike Smigiel notes Cecil County now has a provision in their ethics complaint process which prohibits complainants from discussing the matter with ANYONE.  If they do, they are subject to a $5,000 fine and up to a year in jail.

In reality, this is much ado about nothing.  State law prohibits the county from doing this.  Therefore, its unenforceable.  However, how many people filing ethics complaints are lawyers and / or know that.  Since the “Penalties” are clearly stated on the complaint form, how many people have been intimidated from filing a complaint – frivolous or no?

This sounds like something out of the Barrie Comegys school of governance.

Click here to go to the article

Cecil County Ethics Board Accused of Unethical Intimidation Of Those Filing Ethics Complaints.

Every once in a while a constituent  brings a matter to my attention that I can’t  really believe. Such was the case when Ms. Billye Jo Jackson brought to my attention her concern that the Cecil County Ethics Board had added a new requirement to the form  a citizen is asked to sign  when filing an ethics complaint about an elected official. 

This blog is not about who she was complaining about or what she had to say about them.  This blog is about the process a citizen of Cecil County is now being asked to subject themselves to in order to file a formal complaint about an elected official’s alleged unethical behavior.

The County recently added a section to the form that a complaintant is required to fill out. The new language notifys the complaining party that they are prohibited from telling anyone else about the ethics complaint they had filed. The penalty for telling someone you filed an ethics complaint can be up to a year in jail and $5,000 fine.   The basis for the information being put on the form is Cecil County Code Section 166-6C.

The State Attorney General’s Office back in 1981 addressed the question and opined that commissioner counties have the implied authority to enforce local laws or ordinances adopted as required by State Ethics law and further stated that a commissioner county would need express authority to define violations of the public ethics provisions as crimes or to impose fines, penalties or forfeitures for the violations of those ethics provisions.   

The reason local governments can not control the placement of  political signs even when there are sign restrictions in place is because political signs are considered “political speech”.  Political Speech has been declared by the  courts to be the highest form of free speech. 

Citizens have a right to complain that they believe the activities of  local elected officials to be unethical conflicts of interest or that the public official is unethical because they don’t pay their JC Penny Credit Card bills, because they have been accused of abusing their spouses, or discovered is some other unethical or illegal behavior.  A citizen can stand on the Court House Steps and yell all day long and as long as they are not violating some other law, the speech is protected for the most part. There may not be protection if the public official can show the citizen knew the matter not to be true and made the statements in public with that knowledge. It would be argued in such a case that the citizen was malicious in spreading untruths about the public official.  

The public policy in having ethics boards, is to encourage citizens to come forward and report perceived conflicts of interest or unethical behavoir of government officials.  Threatening citizens with the possibility of jail and a large fine for coming forward and later telling someone about their having filed a complaint  is certainly counter productive to the public policy  goal of encouraging  the public to participate in such public discourse. 

The Attorney General’s office was asked to review this Cecil County policy and issued a letter stating they agreed that Cecil County can not enforce a criminal sanction against someone who violates this Cecil County Code Provision.  

In light of this, the Cecil County Commissioners should contact everyone who received information telling them they could face potential fines and penalties as a result of their having reported what they perceived to be unethical behavior by a public official and tell them that information was incorrect.  The County should also remove this information from all future communications to the public.

Why Speed Cameras Are All About Raising Money And Not About Public Safety.

Speed camera acceptance is sold under the guise of Public Safety, yet, this is a fiction. The argument is that if the cameras are placed in strategic areas such as school zones and construction sites then the issuing of tickets by a State machine to a privately owned machine will some how change driver speeding behaviorand thus reduce accidents. No empirical evidence is presented to show this theory works. In fact, the state already has increased fines and penalties for speeding in school zones and construction sites. If fines were effective in changing behavior there would be no need for the addition of speed cameras.

 At least, under the current system the fines and the penalties attach to the person driving the car. Under the new system there is no incentive to change behavior for the driver unless they also own the car. Even when the driver is also the owner of the car there is lessincentive to comply because there is no criminal penalty attached with the speed camera citation, no points assessed by the MVA.

 The reason there is no criminal penalty is because our Constitution requires the state to allow a criminal defendant the ability to confront their accuser. This would require that someone would have to show up in court and prove that the speed camera was operating correctly. Instead of arguing about having to comply with Constitutional principles such as Due Process, the State has created a new legal fiction whereby, the State’s machines (speed cameras) can determine if your privately owned machine (your car) is violating a State law and regulation.

 This is where the Governments argument fails. They are doing little to change the behavior of the person responsible for the infraction, the driver, is not the one to whom the penalty is directed. With speed cameras it is the car (not the driver) which is ticketed. The actualowner of the car, whether they are a parent, friend, employer, or a corporation, receives the ticket and the actual driver receives no penalty.

 No matter who is driving, the penalty is given after the event has occurred and does nothing to prevent the occurrence. Speed bumps would actually reduce speed and thus actually protect the individuals whom the State claims it wishes to protect.

 Further proof that speed cameras are about revenue generation and not about safety, fi found in the fact that the legislature rejected an Amendment to the speed camera bill that would havelimited the operation of the cameras to times when construction work or school activities were actually taking place, the Amendment was rejected because the State wants the revenue.

 Now is the time that we, the citizens of Cecil County, must let the County Commissioners know of our opposition to speed cameras. We need to tell them we know that these devices are much more about revenue enhancement than they are about safety. The County Commissioners must realize that the citizens of Cecil County view speed cameras as another infringement upon our personal liberties, thus, while we can’t always stop what happens at the federal level, in Washington D.C. with the deterioration of our liberties we certainly can and will hold our locally elected officials accountable.

 Enough is Enough! While our elected officials can break their promise about raising our taxes and tell us there was nothing to do because “services” to the public took precedent over keeping their promises, in the case of speed cameras the trade off of individual freedom is not acceptable. The one thing we know for sure is once the camera’s are allowed is the area they are allowed in will expand, the speed of the areas they are allowed in will grow beyond the 25 mph areas currently planned and the fines given will increase. If there is a traffic flow problem in front of schools or construction sites there are other ways to address the concerns other than speed cameras, the county can use speed bumps or place officers in the area so there is an immediate notice to the person driving, and responsible for the violation, that they have violated the law.  Currently, if your daughter drives to school and speeds through the speed zone every day for a week, neither you or she would know it until the first of the five or six tickets started arriving in the mail 7 to 10 days later. If the officer was there the behavoir would immediately be corrected and not allowed to continue for a week.

 To protect against any future group of the County Commissioners deciding to place speed cameras in Cecil County we are going to collect signatures to give to the commissioners to let them know the citizens are not willing to so readily give up their rights.

Call your commissioners and sign the petitions if you see them to tell our locally elected officials we do not need nor do we want speed cameras in Cecil County.