Kane County ethics reform not as easy as first thought

There are no fatal, legal flaws that will keep Kane County from implementing the vast amount of ethical changes board members are considering. How to actually investigate charges of an ethical breach, however, will take more attention than board members have given the issue so far.

That was the gist of a legal ruling handed down by Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti Friday. The murkiness of enforcement watered seeds of doubt from county board members who've expressed doubts about how far an ethics policy change must go to dictate proper behavior by elected officials.

Barsanti's ruling came after a look at a proposed ordinance pitched by county board member Jim Mitchell, of North Aurora, that is nearly identical to an ethics law recently approved by the DuPage County Board. Since Mitchell brought the proposal forward, the county board has decided to use it merely as an example and not as the framework for any changes that may occur to Kane County's ethics law.

Despite that, Barsanti's ruling did give the county board's Judicial and Public Safety Committee food for thought in regard to enforcement.

Barsanti said it's the procedural aspect of enforcement the board must contemplate. Specifically, there's nothing the county board is currently debating that spells out how evidence is introduced at an ethics complaint hearing. There's also nothing tied to any law that gives a county ethics commission or a county inspector general any real subpoena power to force anyone to even show up at the ethics hearing, Barsanti said.

Other issues to consider involve creating a campaign contribution limit different from the state limit. A new state election law addressing the issue will come on the books in 2011. Barsanti also recommended against disciplining officials who reveal actions taken during closed session meetings because it may be a violation of the First Amendment.

"I think what we're learning is this is not as simple as it was portrayed," county board member Mike Kenyon said.

Board member John Fahy followed with his own concerns about the costs of creating new governmental entities such as an ethics commission.

"It's going to cost the taxpayers money, and that's where I have a concern," Fahy said. "We're going to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars to address this issue."

But the need for more debate on topics not yet considered didn't raise red flags for all board members. Jackie Tredup urged her fellow board members not to be dissuaded by the issues Barsanti raised.

"I would hope that we don't look at this as being too complicated or going to cost us more revenue as a reason not to do something," she said.