Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton has announced the formation of a city Ethics Review Ad Hoc Task Force as a part of an effort to bring more accountability, transparency and openness to City Hall. From Colorado City to Tucson, Arizona’s municipalities have suffered from corruption.
Two weeks ago, the City of Tucson fired employees of the Transportation Department for using public time and money for private use, in Mayor Jonathan Rothschild’s attempt to clean up the City. At his press conference, Rothschild announced the firings and said :it is a new day at the city of Tucson. We have a new mayor, and a new city manager.” Rothschild said graft and corruption will no longer be tolerated and will be punished under his watch, however only one management level employee was held respoinsible.
Stanton says that it has been more than a decade since the City of Phoenix ” has considered or evaluated its ethics rules and policies. It is essential to review these policies, learn where we are strong and understand where we can improve. Accountability and transparency are key to good city governance.”
The Phoenix task force will:
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the city’s ethics standards with respect to receipt of gifts, familial conflicts, financial conflicts and professional conflicts.
- Make recommendations about documenting, implementing and enforcing ethics standards.
- Evaluate best practices and provide recommendations on how the City of Phoenix can best offer a continual review of its ethics standards.
The task force includes 11 members appointed by Mayor Stanton and will be staffed by the city’s law and human resources departments. The task force will meet at least once a month.
The first meeting of the Ethics Task Force will be Sept. 17 at 4:30 p.m. at the Adams Street Training Center at 140 N. Third Ave., Phoenix.