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Ethics lesson delivered to local officials
YOUNGSTOWN
Several dozen Mahoning County officials got schooled on the Ohio Ethics Law.
Susan Willeke, education and communication administrator with the Columbus-based Ohio Ethics Commission, delivered the two-hour presentation Tuesday at Oakhill Renaissance Place.
The state’s ethics law is a criminal law that bars biased expenditures of public funds and conflicts of interest in decision-making by public officials.
“We all have the right to know that government’s fair – that it wasn’t influenced – that it wasn’t skewed by those outside interests,” Willeke told the audience, which consisted of all three county commissioners and a broad spectrum of county agency and court officials.
As an example, Willeke said a Job and Family Services worker needs to remove himself or herself from the eligibility determination when a relative applies for benefits.
A health-department employee needs to remove himself or herself from inspections of a restaurant owned by members of his or her family, she added.
“When I act on my conflicts of interest, not only am I violating the public’s trust and potentially putting them in jeopardy, depending on what my job is, I am also putting myself in a situation where I could be convicted of a crime,” Willeke explained.
The state ethics law also prohibits public officials from disclosing confidential information and bans coercion of campaign contributions.
The law also bars private business people from giving improper compensation or things of substantial value to public officials and employees with whom they do business; and it bars public employees from accepting such gifts.
“They’ll probably take back with them what we’re allowed to do, what we’re not allowed to do, what you need to get permission for, or how do you have to follow the law in different respects?,” Carol Rimedio-Righetti, chairwoman of the county commissioners, said of the county officials in attendance.
“The vast majority of people in public service want to do the right thing. There are about 600,000 people in public service in Ohio,” Willeke said in an interview.
The Ohio Ethics Law was enacted by the state legislature, and the OEC was created to administer it in 1973.
The commission is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans appointed by the governor to six-year staggered terms and subject to Senate confirmation.
The commission has a 21-member staff, which includes lawyers, investigators and disclosure and education staff.
Ohio is one of more than 40 states with an ethics commission.
The commission advises and guides public officials concerning the ethics law; receives financial disclosure forms from all state, county and city elected officials and candidates for office; investigates complaints alleging ethics law violations and prosecutes violators and assists the legislature in considering ethics legislation.
OEC Executive Director Paul Nick was one of the prosecutors in the first Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case, which alleged a conspiracy among a private landlord and Mahoning County officials to impede the 2007 move of the county Department of Job and Family Services from rented quarters to the county-owned Oakhill.
The location of the workshop was ironic, but Remedio-Righetti said the commissioners’ decision to invite Willeke was not inspired by the Oak-hill criminal case or any other Mahoning Valley corruption case involving public officials.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with that. That’s over,” Remedio-Righetti said emphatically concerning the Oakhill criminal case.
The commissioners invited all Mahoning County elected officials and department heads to Tuesday’s program, but their attendance was optional, she said.
The ethics commission gives about 200 presentations, such as the one given Tuesday, annually around the state.
Willeke also gave her ethics law presentation locally in recent months at the invitation of Mahoning County Auditor Ralph Meacham.