Town's ethics code to get a second look

The Town of Mooresville adopted a Code of Ethics in 2005, but commissioners at the time failed to give the policy teeth.

That could soon change.

Mooresville’s new town manager, Steve Husemann, plans to revisit the town’s Code of Ethics, and at least two town commissioners hope to pick up where the 2005 town board left off.

Ironically, Miles Atkins – who was not a commissioner at the time – researched and introduced the idea of an ethics code to the town board in 2005, when commissioners – specifically Mitch Abraham and Alice Lee – were facing public scrutiny for their selection of engineering firm CH2M Hill to design the town’s multi-million wastewater treatment plant expansion. Abraham and Lee spearheaded the town’s choice of CH2M Hill but did not disclose that they were close personal friends with an official of the firm and attended his same church. (See http://thegattonreport.blogspot.com/2008/03/whats-that-old-adage-about-rats.html)

The town board adopted the Code of Ethics on June 6, 2005. It also developed an "ethics advisory committee" to review the code and provide input and recommendations to the town board regarding the formation of a formal committee to oversee the code’s enforcement. Atkins and Chris Carney -- also not yet elected to the town board -- were appointed to the advisory committee; Atkins was appointed by Danny Beaver, who Atkins would eventually challenge and defeat in the 2007 at-large race, and Carney was appointed by Mitchell Mack, whose Ward 4 seat Carney won in 2005 when Mack chose not to seek re-election.

The advisory committee met four times over the course of four months. But when the group brought its recommendations to Mooresville’s town board in January 2006, commissioners took no action, essentially killing the advisory committee’s work. It also meant that the Code of Ethics had no approved procedures in place to respond to citizen complaints against elected officials.

To read the ethics advisory committee’s findings, click on the documents below:


Last week, Mayor Bill Thunberg asked Husemann to revisit the policy – along with all the other town policies, procedures and operations.

But Carney quickly zeroed in on the ethics code, saying that elected officials from other areas have found themselves in “inappropriate situations” and “that doesn’t leave a good taste in the mouth of the citizens.”

The Code of Ethics addresses several topics, including conflicts of interest; duties to recuse, disclose, and cooperate; unfair use of town property; misuse of confidential information; improper gifts and fair and equal treatment.

“So much work was done” by a “very non-partisan ethics advisory committee” in 2005, Carney said last week. “A lot of the footwork has been done, and we need to take the recommendations of that committee and put (the Code of Ethics) in action.

“There was a unanimous recommendation from the committee to form a vetting system for ethical complaints against an elected official,” Carney added. “Everybody agreed to the premise and the idea of it. There’s no reason in the world not to have it.”

Carney said currently in North Carolina, “there’s no system, short of a felony, of removing unethical elected officials.”

If an elected official is found to have conducted himself unethically, said Carney, “Citizens shouldn’t have to hold their nose, waiting for the next election cycle. There certainly needs to be something done about that.”

Atkins said that the town’s adopted Code of Ethics remains in effect. However, he said, “If someone filed a complaint today, they can reference a code, but there’s not a formalized process in place even though (the ethics advisory committee) recommended it.”

He said he expects that Husemann and commissioners will review the Code of Ethics and the advisory committee’s findings and, sometime in the near future, vote on virtually the same recommendations that were presented to the town board in January 2006.

“When there is lack of confidence or mistrust, this will be a tool for the citizens,” Atkins said.