The Citizens for Ethics Reform (CER) issued a press release on February 14, two days ahead of the City of Tallahassee workshop on ethics. The release called on Tallahassee City Commissioners to support new lobbing reforms and stronger protections for whistleblowers.
The Tallahassee Independent Ethics Board has sent proposals to the city for consideration. Some of them include strengthening registration requirements for lobbyists and granting protections to city employees who report violations.
According to CER, the proposals by the Ethics Board aim to address reports of “secretive lobbyists in Tallahassee who refuse to register with the city and disclose their clients.”
Additionally, CER supports the recommendation by the Ethics Board to give the committee the ability to grant whistleblower protections to city employees who report possible violations of the city’s ethics code.
As it stands now, only the City’s Inspector General is permitted to grant those protections. However, CER highlighted the fact that the Inspector General answers to the mayor and commissioners, “therefore, he is not truly independent.”
“Only the Ethics Board is truly independent, and therefore it’s appropriate that it should be able to grant whistleblower protections,” said Marilynn Wills with the Tallahassee League of Women Voters of Florida. “Without such protection, city employees will be reluctant to call out ethics violations for fear of termination, demotion or retribution.”
For the Ethics Board to have the authority to grant whistleblower protections, the city commission must amend the city charter.
Also, CER seeks to have the city commissioners reverse their recent decision that does not recognize the Ethics Board’s jurisdiction over ethics complaints involving city officials and staff serving on city advisory boards. CER believes that since the commissioners and staff serve on the advisory committees as part of their responsibilities to the city, they should be under the jurisdiction of the Independent Ethics Board.
Citizens for Ethics Reform Seeks Changes at City Workshop added by Lynsey Kirk on
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Let’s all wait for the next shoe ? to drop from the soulless perverse left which will be in defense of their “everybody be gay” initiative. Adam and Steve can’t make babies in the new left garden of eden = no more Fatherhood “Crisis”
The left has a well deserved mid-term spanking from the voters comming their way.
Let’s all watch on February 24th at 3 p.m. Mayor John Dailey and County Commissioner At-Large Nick Maddox vote to take away 27 million dollars of taxpayer dollars meant for infrastructure for the sole purpose to enrich their re-election campaigns.
The question is will they come to their senses and do the right thing to NOT vote to give 27 million dollars of our infrastructure funds away for STADIUM SEATS in order to obtain FSU dollars for their campaign accounts or will they do the right thing to not give away 27 million dollars of infrastructure funds…?
Hopefully this vote will be carried on major networks nationwide to watch two Democratic Party corrupt politicians vote for themselves and not the taxpayers.
… and it gets worse when Mayor Dailey spends 27 million dollars of our tax dollars for stadium seats with infrastructure dollars solely to create a revenue stream for his campaign re-election account.
… and before that gives taxpayer dollars to a previous Gillium campaign staffer under the guise of a Children Services Council…
This mayor wakes up every morning with a new sshme on how to divert taxpayer dollars into his re-election campaign account.
Why are they calling him a secretive or ghost lobbyist?
It’s Drew Jones, John Dailey’s campaign manager. Why doesn’t the mayor just tell
his friend to register?
“ to address reports of “secretive lobbyists in Tallahassee who refuse to register with the city and disclose their clients.”
So, don’t keep us guessing, who are the secrative lobbyists?
That’s an oxymoron!
The minutiae of cover-up committee makes it unbelievable that so much energy is used to protect the perpetrators instead of exposing them… Case in point…
During a campaign election cycle the mayor is misusing WCOT for campaign ads.
This should be addressed. The mayor should pay a campaign election fine and pay for the TV ads and any opponent should have equal time. Going forward it should be a violation (if the election commission has not already made this a criminal offense) to disallow any elected official from misusing a government entity to do campaign ads.
Unfortunately, our mayor does not have enough self discipline, self control, nor honesty to refrain from misusing his office.
If the mayor is misusing his office in this way what other ways is he misusing his office?