| County ethics policy may not cover complaint |
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By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer
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Posted: Thursday, March 12, 2009 11:49 am
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The chairman of Rutherford County’s Board of Commissioners Ethics Committee may recuse himself from deliberations on an ethics complaint filed against another county commissioner.
Ethics Committee Chairman and local attorney John Rodgers said he has represented Avent Lane in past legal matters.
He said he can participate in the debate but feels uncomfortable participating in the deliberations or voting on the matter.
Lane filed paperwork with County Mayor Ernest Burgess Monday alleging County Commissioner Trey Gooch broke state law when he distributed a letter written by the county attorney to parties in opposition to the Bible Plark.
The complaint also alleges County Attorney Jim Cope violated ethics by “providing information to a commissioner that it was intended for further distribution to the citizenry of the county.”
Lane alleges this was a violation of Tennessee state law dealing with the use of official information.
Rodgers also said he is unsure whether this issue actually falls under the purview of the Ethics Committee because the county’s ethics policy is very narrowly focused on financial issues and conflicts of interest.
“From our standpoint as the ethics committee our focus is narrow as terms of policy,” he said. “We need to decide whether the conduct even meets the guidelines of conduct we are required to investigate.
“It’s important to point out that our ethics policy is very narrowly tailored,” Rodgers said, adding it grew out of Tennessee Waltz scandal.
After the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz investigation into the General Assembly, the legislature required counties to enact ethics policies to combat conflicts of interest and vote buying with gifts and other things of value.
But Lane’s complaint stems from an allegedly broken state law, not anything that Gooch or Cope benefited from financially.
State law states “a public servant commits an offense who, by reason of information to which the public servant has access in the public servant's official capacity and that has not been made public, attains or aids another to attain a benefit.”
Lane alleges Gooch and Cope both violated this law when Gooch requested information from the county attorney’s office in regards to a clause in the Rutherford County zoning resolution that allows for surrounding landowners to protest proposed development with petitions.
Gooch then testified he provided the county attorney’s letter and a sample petition to John L. Batey for use in opposition to the Bible Park.
“This information was not available to the public,” Lane said in his letter. “Mr. Gooch’s clear intent in providing this information was clearly to provide certain of his constituents with an advantage in defeating a zoning resolution supported by other of his constituents.”
When the Bible Park was before the county commission last May, surrounding landowners produced protest petitions that forced a two-thirds majority vote on a rezoning request. The vote subsequently fell two votes short for approval.
Even Judge Robert Corlew believed the county attorney was in the wrong, which he said in a ruling in favor of the Shelton family. The Sheltons sued the county challenging the commission’s denial of the park’s rezoning request.
“In fairness, the county attorney should not have addressed a letter to a county commissioner, which was apparently used in the effort to gain signature petitions,” Corlew wrote in the Shelton ruling.
Burgess said he has looked over the allegations and has no comment, but said he will forward the complaint onto the county’s Ethics Committee.
Lane said Tuesday he was neither for nor against the proposed bible park, but is concerned about a perceived “good ole boys network” in county government, and he filed the complaint to bring the situation to light.
Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com. |
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