The Inspector General's office just ruled against West Palm Beach for reimbursing Kimberly Mitchell $7,325 for defending herself in an IG ethics violation involving a home cable problem with Comcast. Mitchell is the good friend of Shanon Materio who took the side of Mitchell. Originally the commission voted 4/0 to reimburse Mitchell her attorney fees.
The IG's office said that Commissioner Mitchell was not acting in her official capacity when she had a city receptionist use the city's official hotline to have Comcast at her home to fix her cable so that she could watch a football game. The suggestion was that the repair was not for the greater good of the neighborhood but for her personally.
West Palm Beach is one of the municipalities that is suing the County because of the fee that all cities are required to pay. Now I have to wonder if it had been a city that was not part of the lawsuit, if a simple call from the IG's office to the city attorney of that municipality would have ended the complaint in an instant.
The fourteen city governments that are suing more than likely do not want any outside office telling them if they have done something unethical. Even the cities that are paying don't want to hear about complaints either. They want to do it their way and there lies the rub for the 72% of the electorate that demanded this watchdog. Is there any politics involved? The County Administrator is not behind the office either and wants Steckler out of there. He is against audits whereas Steckler says "the fundamental tenant of an office of an inspector general is audits and investigations."
“The
fundamental tenet of an office of inspector general is audit and
investigations,” Steckler said. “If someone is talking about eliminating
audits … you might as well just shut the doors and go home.” - See more
at:
http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/westpalmbeat/2013/05/west-palm-settling-inspector-general-case/#sthash.p4BBwP4g.dpuf
“The
fundamental tenet of an office of inspector general is audit and
investigations,” Steckler said. “If someone is talking about eliminating
audits … you might as well just shut the doors and go home.” - See more
at:
http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/westpalmbeat/2013/05/west-palm-settling-inspector-general-case/#sthash.p4BBwP4g.dpuf
West Palm Beach told the Inspector General to stuff it...they want to get on to important business like serving the city.
I am beginning to think that all elected officials are corrupt to some degree. WPB is just more so than a lot of other cities. LW comes in 2nd. On the other hand, maybe they are first.
ReplyDeleteServing the city? hahahahahahahaha
ReplyDeleteThe I.G.'s office needs to be defunded. This whole thing was set up to fail from the beginning. You are funded by the people that you are SUPPOSED to be overseeing? Ridiculous, and totally ,as we have come to see, ineffective. This case was a desperate act of political grandstanding on the part of the I.G.'s office. Normal everyday people with legitimate concerns have been totally ignored by these bureaucrats. Until Palm Beach County REALLY wants to punish and get rid of corruption by it's elected officials (which will be NEVER)
ReplyDeleteget rid of this useless office. The money can be better spent elsewhere.