After months of deliberation, the St. Michaels Commissioners voted last night to put aside the piles of revisions their ethics sub-committee has made to the town’s ethics ordinance, and ask the state for an exemption from a new stricter state law.
“It’s crazy” said Commissioner T. Coleman duPont. “Why do you want to put a stake in the ground if you don’t have to? If an exemption is an option, we should explore that option.”
The new law requires all elected officials and those running for elective offices in the state to comply with the same stringent financial disclosures and conflict of interest laws that apply to elected state officials. With concerns that the new law was put in place to address blatant ethics violations in western shore jurisdictions and has nothing to do with small towns on the eastern shore, Commission President Michael Brady said “the state is operating on a knee-jerk basis. We have a perfectly good ethics ordinance that’s worked fine for years.”
Commissioner Michael Vlahovich’s willingness to ask for the exemption tipped the 3-2 vote.
This fall, Trappe, Easton and Oxford asked the state for an exemption. In recent weeks, the Maryland Ethics Commission met for the first time to consider these exemptions. During the first round, Trappe was granted an exemption, Easton was not. St. Michaels Town Attorney Karen Ruff explained that each town’s population, budget, number of employees and boards were the factors in determining whether small jurisdiction’s requests for exemptions to this law would be granted.
Concerns surround the problem that the disclosures required by the new law will reduce the number of town residents who might be willing to serve as commissioners or on local boards.
Commissioners Joanne Clark and Donna Hunt opposed the request for exemption.
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