Missteps prompt Ingham Co. ethics policy review

Ingham County commissioners are looking to hold themselves to a higher ethical standard after taking steps to scrap and rewrite a longstanding policy to guide their conduct as elected officials.

After several incidents of elected and hired county officials “playing around the edges” — as Commissioner Ryan Sebolt put it — of policies that guide their conduct, he and others think it’s time to for a revision. County attorneys have been instructed to entirely rewrite the policy by July.

“Somebody reading through our ethics policy shouldn’t have to read through a dizzying array of questions before they actually get to the meat of the ethics that are proposed within it,” Sebolt said. “I just don’t feel like the current ethics policy is adequate or applicable — nor is it accessible.”

The 26-page ethics policy outlines general guidelines that mandate the “highest moral principles” and “more efficient and economical ways of getting tasks accomplished.” It also looks to quell nepotism and other conflicting financial interests by avoiding the general allowance of “special favors or privileges” among officials.

Commissioner Mark Grebner, who said he wrote the policy in the middle of the night while ill with the flu, said the guidelines from the ‘90s have served Ingham County well. But he agrees that changes are necessary, just as long as the attorneys maintain “the spirit” of his concepts in the new draft.

“Our ethics policy is very unusual,” Grebner explained. “It’s intricate and subtle. Maybe most people might think ethics policies shouldn’t be intricate and subtle, but straightforward language can be easily evaded. This creates rules and methods for when these sorts of problems arise and it helps guide us back to the ground.”

The policy highlights guidelines on hiring, purchasing, romantic relationships between employees, political contributions, gifts and how to resolve alleged violations of the policy. Grebner said the policy is designed to be more informative than consequential, and helps create an “institution” of accountability.

Sebolt doesn’t doubt the principles behind the policy. He just wants some more clarification on the details — specifically as it relates to the use of private email accounts for county-related business. Commissioner Dennis Louney resigned last year after it was discovered he had used his county email address for campaign purposes. Sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth apologized for a similar violation this year.

Another board-level controversy ensued when City Pulse reported that several county commissioners had listed their private email addresses as their public point of contact on the Ingham County website. Some commissioners — like Grebner — had argued that it’s nearly impossible to keep the two distinctly separate.

But private emails can pose a clear obstacle to the state’s Freedom of Information Act when multiple elected officials have an outlet to discuss county-related business outside the reach of the county’s Information Technology Department. Commissioners want some clarity.

“I’ve tried to have the policy rewritten, but it never worked out,” Grebner added. “The ethics policy does need to be rewritten. I agree. It hasn’t kept up to date with state law. It just sounds a lot like me writing weirdly, but nobody on the board was capable of editing it at the time. And there it has sat for all these years.”

Added Commissioner Thomas Morgan: “As it stands, it’s opaque gobbledegook that serves no other purpose than to amuse its author and show through effusive verbosity how much smarter he is than anyone else.”

“The ethics policy needs a wholesale rewrite so that it provides clear guidelines,” Morgan said. Grebner “is proud of pointing out that his policy is so good that it’s never been violated. It’s much more likely that it’s never been violated because it’s too weak and confusing.”

The yet-to-be-written, revised ethics policy is due back before the Board of Commissioners by July 9. The committee resolution calls for staff attorneys to include a “general sense” of the existing policy with simplified language, along with the inclusion of “best practices” from policies of other municipalities across the state.

Commissioner Emily Stivers said times have changed since the policy was last amended back in 1999.

“An increased reliance on social media and email calls for an increased need for a better ethics policy,” Stivers said. “We’re looking more for bullet points than rambling paragraphs. With the last board of commissioners, I think we were just starting to get into some mucky, ethical territory. We just needed something more specific.”