Code of conduct in the works for Mooresville's elected officials

Mooresville may soon have a code of conduct for elected officials.

Town Attorney Steve Gambill is drafting a policy that if adopted by commissioners would define the town’s ethical standards for elected government officials, Commissioner Miles Atkins said this week.

News of a potential code of conduct came less than a week after The Gatton Report/Mooresville Weekly exposed hundreds of intimate e-mails between Mayor Chris Montgomery, who is married, and a woman, who goes by Lisa Richards, Molly King and Grace King, that were discovered in a public records request.

A second public records request turned up hundreds more e-mails between the mayor and woman from July 5, 2010, to Jan. 3, 2011.

Atkins said the town’s ethics policy, which he spearheaded as a private citizen in 2005, “provides guidance on ethical issues and questions of right and wrong.” But the town has been lacking a written code of conduct for elected officials, he said.

Commissioner Rhett Dusenbury said the absence of such a policy gives elected officials latitude of use. However, Dusenbury said, “We are frequently reminded that this is public equipment, our uses should be discrete in nature, and (we should use) common sense.

“We have all been informed in different training classes that N.C. Freedom of Information statutes apply to the use of all public equipment and that our conversations/uses of public equipment are open to public scrutiny,” Dusenbury said.

Commissioner Thurman Houston said he thinks that could be one reason the town has never felt the need to consider a code of conduct for elected officials: Because those leaders should simply know better – or at least, he said, they’re trained better – than to behave in such questionable ways.

Commissioner Mac Herring acknowledged that “the mayor did not violate a policy.” However, he said, “Were his actions inappropriate, unethical and unbecoming of him as mayor? Yes. Do we need to come down hard on him about it? I think public opinion will do that.”

Commissioner Chris Carney said the town board “has nothing adopted that allows for us to censure anyone for this kind of action.” But “the mayor’s recent misconduct in office” has provided Mooresville with the opportunity to develop and adopt a code of conduct, which Carney said he would “support 110 percent.”

Codes of conduct for elected officials have traditionally been hotly debated; it’s anyone’s guess how the policy may be officially received by Mooresville’s elected officials.

But one thing on which they all agreed this week is that the mayor’s frequent use of public e-mail for private matters, in the words of Commissioner Mitch Abraham, “is very much inappropriate and unacceptable.”

Said Dusenbury: “I would have to say that as a constituent, taxpayer, (and) voter, I am disappointed in the mayor. We are given the trust of the public when we are elected, we swear to uphold the U.S. and N.C. Constitutions to the best of our ability, and we are expected to represent ourselves in the community accordingly.

“I really don’t care what the mayor of Mooresville does in his/her own home, but the fact that he voluntarily ran for office to represent the people of Mooresville as their public face and lead ambassador carries with it the responsibilities of a public official … a higher standard of conduct than the average taxpayer.”

Referring to the code of ethics he pushed for the town in 2005, Atkins said he lives by the same standards he applies to anyone else and “if in any capacity I ever abuse the position or authority graciously give to me by the people of this community, then I expect to be held accountable for it.

“As elected officials, we must hold ourselves accountable to the taxpayers and citizens of Mooresville by using public equipment solely for carrying out town business,” he said.

But the mayor and his wife have placed part of the blame for the mayor’s recent actions at the feet of Town Hall. Lisa Montgomery said she told her husband upon his election as mayor that “a lot of people in that town office … will stab you in the back as quick as you turn around.”

The mayor told Mooresville Weekly prior to last week’s story that he wondered if the report on his e-mail use was “politically motivated” and said: “I don’t walk away from the rumor mill – I run. At Town Hall, that’s all there is. There’s no one – maybe with the exception of Steve Gambill – that I can trust.”

Each and every town commissioner took issue with that this week. Houston, Abraham and Herring said Town Hall bears absolutely no responsibility for the situation.

“It is sadly unfortunate that the mayor feels this way,” Abraham said, adding that he is “deeply disappointed that I did not first hear about these e-mails directly from the mayor himself.” He said “the mayor is welcome to discuss his actions with me personally, face to face.”

Carney called the mayor’s statement about Town Hall “a terribly irresponsible comment” that was “even more irresponsible than the (the mayor’s) actions themselves.”

Elected officials, Carney said, “have to put politics aside and work alongside whoever the citizens put in place. We have no buddy system in place, but we do have an expectation of work ethic, and we expect the mayor to come in and do his part of the heavy lifting. If he has felt that he’s not been welcome, that’s probably because he’s not been able to get his part of the job done as of yet.

“We’re all trying to do our part, and it is improper for any particular elected (official) to insinuate that they’re treated with anything less than the respect of their office,” Carney said.

Instead of the story being brought on by Town Hall, Carney said, “This situation is a distraction brought upon the Town of Mooresville, the town board and staff by one person. None of us would have ever asked to be placed in a situation to have to comment on the character of an elected official.

“Nobody leaked this information,” he said. “Nobody was even aware of this information until the public-records request went through.”

Added Atkins: “My understanding is that all of this came to light as a result of the public records law that allows access to all government communications.

“I don’t care to speculate on blame, political motivations or who is to bear responsibility for this situation,” he said. “I firmly believe in and am committed to transparency and accountability in our town government. If any elected official or paid staff member uses publicly funded tools such as e-mail or cell phones to conduct private business, that is not in keeping with our responsibility to the taxpayers and citizens of Mooresville.”

Said Dusenbury: “I am sorry that the mayor feels the way he does regarding other commissioners and town staff, but he is an adult who makes his own choices, and this situation boils down to very bad judgement on the mayor’s part.”

Dusenbury said he is “not aware of any conspiracy to remove the mayor from office or to diminish his standing in the community. I would have to state that to the contrary, we have all given him advice regarding issues before the town, and he has exercised his own judgement when he had the opportunity.”

Regarding Town Hall responsibility, the office of mayor “has certain standards and responsibilities that come with it,” Dusenbury said. “These standards come in the form of adherence to North Carolina Statutory Law, ethical conduct, decorum and a moral component consistent with the accepted norms of our society, and (Mayor Montgomery) accepted these voluntarily and intentionally.

“We as adults should all weigh the consequences of our actions before we act … but regardless of whether we are a bad legislator, public speaker, etc., one of our first duties as elected officials is to avoid bringing disrepute on our community whether it be in deed or even in inference.