Ethics discussion will put every Kane Co. Board member in the spotlight

Kane County’s elected officials will operate for the majority of the primary election season without a local code of ethics. That became a given when county board members failed to approve ethics code revisions in December that had been debated for more than a year.

To close the ethical void in time for the general election season, board members may have to adopt a combination of blind funding and a rare mandate for every board member to express an opinion on what must be in the ethics code or be judged for their silence.

County board member Phil Lewis has put both those mechanisms in motion. Lewis is chairman of the committee that drafted the latest version of the ethics code. He’s written a letter to every county board member asking them to put their ethics code concerns in writing by Jan. 20. Embedded in the letter is a speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace ultimatum, Lewis said in an interview.

“We’re going to find out who responded and who didn’t,” Lewis said. “If you’re engaged and want to have something happen, you are a participant. If you’re not interested — and you may not be interested — you won’t respond. If at the meeting where we discuss the responses someone all of sudden becomes interested, that’s when they are going to have a problem. That’s been the problem with the process so far. It’s very obvious that some people want to block the process, not engage.”

County board member Jim Mitchell began as the protagonist for rewriting the county’s ethics code to give it some teeth. But Mitchell also was the leading voice against the latest version of the ethics code in December. Mitchell believes the version of the ethics code Lewis’ committee has developed has something more akin to loose dentures than sharp teeth when it comes to proactively seeking out ethical violations.

Mitchell said in an interview he fully intends to submit in writing all his concerns with the ethics code, which is now in its third round of debate.

In the meantime, Lewis is working to remove another stumbling block to passage of a new ethics code. That obstacle is the relationship between the county board and the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office. The state’s attorney would be charged with enforcing the ethics code. But the county board acts as the funding arm for the state’s attorney, holding the power over how much, or how little, money it will give to the office to actually police the county board.

Lewis said the solution to that conflict lies in some form of blind funding for the state’s attorney that doesn’t place a set budget amount for ethics code enforcement. Lewis envisions a funding system that uses the county’s legal liability fund as the pool of cash for ethics investigations and prosecutions. How much of that money is used would be based on “degree of need,” Lewis said.

With the ethical views of every board member tallied, and the funding accounted for, Lewis hopes the county board will fall in love with the new ethics code in time for the board’s Feb. 14 meeting.

“Board members must realize this is an amendable kind of resolution we’re discussing,” Lewis said. “We can make changes to it as needed, but we really need to implement something. This is a voluntary position we’re all in. If I don’t like the rules, I can submit my resignation.”