Alderman Matt Dunn, taking orders from Majority Leader Hoffay
Lets talk ethics, the ethically challenged Majority Leader, Tom Hoffay has proposed with his court jester Matt Dunn an ethics proposal that is not only unconstitutional but unethical.
First things first this ethics bill is designed to prevent what happened last year ( Gallo winning the Mayor's race) from ever happening again.
Hoffay wants to bar the Mayor from being able to serve on the City of Kingston Democratic committee, even though he is the top Democrat in the city.
The legislation would bar certain officials from running for office or being involved in committee politics if they hold certain positions in city government. To put it another way, if this ethics bill had been in pace last year, Shayne Gallo would not have even been allowed to run for the office the people elected him to. It would make the office of Mayor only able to be held by the super elite.
Furthermore, what Hoffay and Jester Dunn are trying to accomplish is to go back to the days when a few party insiders behind closed doors picked who would run for office. This city ethics legislation (which would effect how the Mayor can raise funds as well) is designed to make the office of Mayor beholden to their party not the people. It's designed to give the local political committees more power by tying the hands of public servants and it infringes upon their constitutional rights.
However, there are a group of electeds that are exempt from all of this under the Hoffay/Dunn ethics bill....who you may ask? City Aldermen.
So let me get this straight Dunn and Hoffay want to pass an ethics bill for the city but they want to be exempt themselves?? Hmmmm, sounds very ethical!!!!!
1 comment:
I am not even sure why this is an issue. If you look at last year's Mayoral race, both major party-backed candidates lost their primaries, so it would seem we are fixing a problem that doesn't exist yet.
If you compare the two proposals, you will find them substantially the same, with the exception of the provision cited above. Mayor Gallo's seems to be written as a more detailed and specific document, and it includes tighter restrictions on a more extensive list of Kingston City officials. If Aldermen Dunn and Hoffay add a provision to the effect that officials named on Gallo's list are prohibited from concurrently serving as elected officers of their respective political parties' committees, I am sure an agreement can be reached in short order, and we can pass The Mayor's version with the amendment. Or, you can strike the provision altogether. Or, you can add it as an amendment to the law at a later date, after passage. Or, you can pass a veto-proof bill as you wish. Options are available.
Let's not let this one disagreement become the all-or-nothing brick wall we slam into this time. That is the old way, and I thought we had left that behind
I've written further on my blog. See my thoughts, and links to each of the proposals, at KingstonBarn.wordpress.com
-Andrew Champ-Doran
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