Deena Winter: Council wrestles with conflicts of interest

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Lately, it seems the City Council can’t turn a corner without running into a potential conflict of interest.

Or an alleged conflict, anyway.

Debates over potential conflicts began early this year, when a mayoral committee proposed the city charter be revised to beef up the law governing conflicts of interest.

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The proposal — which promoters are trying to get on the November ballot via petition drive — would have banned council members from having city contracts.

That proposal did not go over well with Republicans on the officially nonpartisan council, who instead passed alternative legislation that would allow council members to continue to get city contracts, but with new rules.

Then the mayor stepped into the debate, signing an executive order forbidding his directors and aides from contracting with the city.

Last month, the council passed legislation allowing itself to abstain from voting on issues when members have a real or perceived personal or financial conflict of interest.

At the same meeting, Council members Ken Svoboda and Robin Eschliman implied mayoral aide Jon Carlson had a conflict of interest because he owns an apartment building across the street from a condo redevelopment project they were being asked to approve.

And in the latest chapter in this ethics debate, Councilman Dan Marvin on Monday suggested Councilman Jon Camp should not vote on a redevelopment project in the Haymarket, where Camp owns eight buildings.

The council was debating a redevelopment project in which real estate developers Robert and Will Scott of WRK want to tear down a warehouse at Eighth and R and build a 130-room hotel.

Camp questioned the project itself, the use of tax increment financing for it, and the developers. He opposed the Scotts’ request for 100 guaranteed parking stalls in the Haymarket Garage (which is near his property) and criticized them for being tardy on another redevelopment project near the new northeast police station.

Later, when it was time to vote on the redevelopment project, Marvin reminded Camp he had been in the camp that accused Carlson of having a conflict because he owned property across the street from a redevelopment project.

And although Marvin disagreed with their assessment, he said Camp ought to be consistent and abstain from voting on the WRK project.

“Under that same principle, your properties are in the blighted area that includes this area,” Marvin said.

“I’m not so sure if you should partake in this conversation about whether we should or shouldn’t approve this, given the fact that your properties are in that blighted area.”

Camp questioned whether Marvin was saying he shouldn’t vote on any project in a blighted area that extends all the way through downtown to the Antelope Valley Project.

“You definitely fall into many of the same circumstances that Mr. Carlson fell into,” Marvin said.

Camp said there are differences: He said his property is a block or two from the proposed hotel, and, he said because he was questioning whether WRK’s project should receive public assistance, he was working against his own interest.

But to avoid the appearance of impropriety, he said he would abstain from voting on the project, which then passed unanimously.

Which begs the question: Will Camp now abstain from voting on future redevelopment projects in and near the Haymarket, including the big ones — a proposed arena, conference center and hotels?

As Marvin said later, “He clearly has millions of dollars invested in the Haymarket.”

For her part, Council Chairwoman Eschliman said the whole conflict discussion was getting out of hand.

“The whole thing can and has been blown completely out of proportion,” she said.

Delving into the details

A few nuggets from nearly four hours of budget meetings Tuesday, as the council digs into the mayor’s budget proposal:

* Public works will try to get back two of the six engineering specialists lost to budget cuts last year. That should be interesting.

The department says the lost employees created a backlog of work from reviews to inspections that must be done, and they are now paying more to hire contractors to do the work.

* The council delved deep into the StarTran bus budget, as is becoming customary. It discussed pros and cons of raising the price of Ride for Five low-income bus passes from $5 to $7 to $10, or creating one flat fee for bus rides (which doesn’t appear feasible).

* The proposed StarTran budget doesn’t including funding for the annual Holiday Lights Tour and its overtime costs.

* Grousing about all of the federal mandates that kept chopping off budget-cutting ideas at the knees, Svoboda wondered aloud whether StarTran’s federal money is worth all the strings attached.

Svoboda was rebuffed by federal mandates at every turn Tuesday, when he asked whether the streets have to be swept every year; whether the bus system could have one flat rate and whether the water department has to send customers an annual water quality report.

* Councilman Doug Emery said it may be time to concentrate bus service in the city core, as other council members have suggested in the past.

* The council signaled it may cut the budget’s proposed 4 percent water and wastewater rate increases by 1 percent.

* The budget ends funding for two of the city’s six recreation centers: The Auld rec center would become a community rental facility; Easterday rec center would become a senior center.

Smoking cigarettes and drinking Mountain Dew

Sounds like a country western song, doesn’t it?

Councilman Jon Camp brought up cigarette-smokers and Dew-drinkers while talking about the StarTran budget Tuesday.

Say what?

It came up while he was suggesting the city might want to sell Ride for Five bus passes as six-month passes, rather than monthly passes.

Some may claim that would get too expensive for low-income riders. Camp said he empathizes with unemployed people, but also hears about “people standing there smoking” $5 packs of cigarettes and “drinking Mountain Dew” while waiting for the bus.

P.S. Could you not cover up the bus windows?

Again with the buses: Camp also asked public works officials if they would stop putting advertisements over the StarTran bus windows for two reasons:

* So if someone is getting mugged on the bus, people could see.

* “So people can see if people are really riding the bus.”

Ride for 10? Motel 60?

Svoboda admitted potential new rates may not “roll off your tongue” as well as Ride for Five.

But, Camp chimed in, “It’s not like Motel 6 is six bucks anymore.”

He said it

“This kind of feels like a shotgun wedding …  and I haven’t even been on a date yet with the county commission.” — Councilman Dan Marvin, on being forced to vote on a resolution signaling the city’s interest in helping the county pay for a new jail to get a better financing package.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.