Ethics Board Elimination Fails In Final Act Of Lame Duck Council

EVANSTON, IL — In its final action before farewells and final remarks from the outgoing 80th Evanston City Council Monday, an ordinance to eliminate the Evanston Ethics Board and replace it with a special counsel failed by a single vote.

Under the proposal, complaints would be investigated and prosecuted by a single appointed attorney, with hearings held before an administrative hearing officer instead of an appointed tribunal of residents.

According to a memo from Deputy City Manager Kelley Gandurski, the change would bring the city's prosecutions of ethics code violations in line with other alleged city code violations. Plus, she said, it would eliminate the argument advanced in two lawsuits alleging due process violations in the way the Ethics Board operated.

Corporation Counsel Nick Cummings said city staff had been working on amending the ethics complaint process for a while before bringing it before the council.

"It is an efficient means of handling the ethics complaints. It's supported by case law," Cummings told outgoing councilmembers during Monday's meeting.

"It's really just a matter of [trying to] keep the city and the corporation from the kinds of controversy that we've had," he said. "It's not so much about eliminating citizen participation, it's more so making sure that the complaints are heard efficiently and in a way that's legally sound and the rights of those that are respondents to the complaint are secured and adjudicated properly."

Ald. Cicely Fleming, 9th Ward, suggested the city look into following the model of Skokie's Ethics Commission. The neighboring village has traditionally included a mix of attorneys and religious leaders. Unlike Evanston, where residents have filed 15 ethics complaints against city officials in the past four years, there are no records of any complaints being heard before the three-member Skokie Commission in recent years.

"I do think not having citizens — or at least not giving it a go with some citizens who, again, are properly trained and have the right expertise — sends the right message when we talk about an ethics violation or an ethics charge [and] whether it's correct or not correct," Fleming said.

Ald. Melissa Wynne, 3rd Ward, one of five incumbents to retain their seat on the 81st Evanston City Council, said replacing the Ethics Board with a special counsel and administrative hearing officer would limit the potential for inappropriate contact between the ethics board and those it investigates.

"I think that what's happened with our Board of Ethics over the last four years has really not served anyone well," Wynne said.

"Clearly, we've had problems getting a quorum, which means that someone who wants to bring an ethics complaint or the person towards whom the ethics complaint has been brought, both parties are being denied speedy resolution of that," she said. "That will be eliminated by this ordinance, and I think that's really critically important that an ethics issue be addressed appropriately, impartially and quickly, because it's not fair to the complainant, and it's not fair to the respondent."

The City Council is not bound by the recommendations of the Ethics Board. In 2017, the five-member board had two vacancies after no one was appointed to it for three years. In 2018, after the board recommended outgoing 8th Ward Ald. Ann Rainey be censured, the senior alderman wound up being the deciding vote to exonerate herself, which its chair described as a "per se violation" of the Code of Ethics. In 2020, resignations again left the board shorthanded. As of 2021, there were only three members on the board.

Fleming motioned to hold off on voting on the ordinance until a future meeting. Rainey sought to override the motion, which required the votes of six alderpeople to override.

Alds. Robin Rue Simmons, 5th Ward, Tom Suffredin, 6th Ward, and Eleanor Revelle, 7th Ward, joined Fleming in voting to hold off the vote.

Outgoing Alds. Judy Fiske, 1st Ward, and Don Wilson, 4th Ward, joined Wynne, Rainey and 2nd Ward Ald. Peter Braithwaite in favor of the special counsel proposal, as it fell one vote short of final approval.

The vote followed the approval of the other roughly two dozen agenda items before the lame duck council, which met for about two hours Monday before declaring a recess and swearing in the mayor, clerk and councilmembers elected on April 6.

Mayor Steve Hagerty said he changed his plan to adjourn the first meeting before swearing in the new City Council following concerns that the lame duck meeting could violate state law.