Dear St. Michaels residents:
In 2010 the Maryland House and Senate unanimously (138-0 and 46-0) passed legislation requiring that Counties’ and Towns’ Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosure provisions for elected local officials and School Board members be equivalent to or exceed State provisions, beginning in 2011. (The State Ethics Commission provided model ordinances for larger and smaller municipalities as guidelines).
The legislation provided for exemptions from the law for smaller municipalities using criteria such as population, number of employees, size of police force, services offered to residents and total budget. As a result, smaller upper eastern shore Towns such as Oxford, Trappe and Queen Anne were granted exemptions. Exemptions were denied to Ridgely, Hurlock, Denton and Greensboro, as well as St. Michaels.
(It should be noted that these guidelines for financial disclosure and conflicts of interest also apply to all State employees earning in excess of $42,000 who are employed in policy-making and enforcement agencies and have for years.)
Every municipality in the State of Maryland not granted an exemption has now submitted qualifying legislation. Only three are not totally in compliance and they are currently under final review and will be compliant soon.
After being denied an exemption twice, on September 11, 2013 the Commissioners of St. Michaels adopted Ordnance 429, a new Ethics Ordinance that is in compliance with the State Model B for small municipalities. It was effective October 2, 2013 and has been approved by the State Ethics Commission.
Certain residents, who objected to the Town’s compliance out of fear that the Town would not be able to find qualified candidates for election, successfully mounted a petition to reject the new ordinance (with 20% the Town’s residents saying “Yes”), which has forced a referendum and will put the decision in the Voters’ hands, as allowed by the Town Charter. That referendum is scheduled for February 3rd. (Incidentally, when asked, the State Ethics Commission knew of no town that has had difficulty-finding candidates because of these laws.)
A “Yes” vote on the referendum supports replacing the old Ethics Ordinance with the new one, Ordinance 429, which is in compliance with State Law and has already been approved by the Commissioners and the State Ethics Commission.
A “No” vote requires that the Commissioners repeal the new compliant law.
Repealing the new Ordinance will put the Town in the position of violating State Law, since the Law still requires that the Ethics Laws of all Counties and Towns be compliant with State provisions if they do not have an exemption. St. Michaels will then either have to sue the State Ethics Commission for relief or request another exemption, which the State has already denied twice. This will result in additional legal fees, siphoning Town money from other needs.
As former Town Commissioners, we urge you to vote “Yes” on February 3d.
Phil Dinkel Barry Gillman
Ted Doyle Donna Hunt
Willard Engelskirchen says
The State Ethics Commission said that it knew of no town that had difficulty finding candidates??? How hard did they look? Did they ask if the best qualified candidates might be out of the running based on this ordinance? Sounds like self serving smoke to me.
There are penalties for conflict of interest. They should be enough.