WHAT IF Your Town Council vetoed town ethics?

1.  Political ethics requires political leaders to meet higher standards than necessary for private life. For example, they may have less of a right to privacy than ordinary citizens and no right to use their office for personal profit.
2. Public sector ethics is a set of principles that guide public officials in their service to their constituents. The fundamental concept of public sector ethics is that decisions and actions are based on what best serves the public’s interests instead of the official's interests (including financial interests) or self-serving political interests.
3. Legal ethics are principles of conduct that members of the legal profession are expected to observe in their practice. They are an outgrowth of the development of the legal profession itself.

The ethical standards stated above provide the foundation for sound political discourse. Without ethics, public leaders have no guidelines for regulating political action and adherence to the legal processes.

Copper Canyon had a set of ethics clauses that guided our actions when determining the various ordinance compliance issues and basic operations of the town’s administrative processes. However, in late 2020 an attempt to modernize our outdated ethics ordinances was written by the town attorney and approved. This approval was strongly opposed by the Mayor, Ron Robertson, Councilmen Hill, and Castillo. This revision was not signed into law by the mayor yet became law automatically after 45 days.

The mayor led a cancel culture campaign- and successfully had the new council delete any and all references to all town ethics ordinances. Councilman Jeff Mayer reintroduced a modified version of the old ethics ordinance, but it failed. The mayor and all four councilmen (all but Councilman Mayer) spoke out on their opinions that “ethics was not a necessary part of council operations. Councilmen Castillo, Hill, Johnson, and Andrews spoke against approving any ethics measure that might interfere with future council activity. Quoting Councilman Castillo, “Too much ethics is bad for the council.”

Any mention of questioning ‘ethical behavior” by the council or mayor is immediately met with a resounding chorus of disingenuous negative comments.

Neighboring municipalities all have a strict “Code of Ethics” ordinances. Yet, our mayor sees no need for any ethics restricting his administration. This type of behavior is the principal reason the council lacks transparency.