Ethics

We are all in favor of ethical behavior and expect our elected representatives to hold ourselves to higher standard than others in the community. We are expected to set the example for the community. Yet, given the state of our political system, people are eager to try anything to get elected officials” under control”. That is a very easy thing to say. But, how do you legislate ethical behavior and who monitors it? How do you begin to define ethical behavior? Our idea of ethical behavior is a personal choice, defined by our own moral compass and intentions. You have already seen during our Council discussions,  we have different ideas of what is ethical or not.

My opinion is that we have an ethics statement defining the behavior our elected officials. This statement was further refined with a list of what ethical behavior should look like in our community. This is the starting point of the behaviors we as elected officials should use in conducting ourselves in the publics interest. If we are to consider adding additional specific rules to this statement, where do we stop? And as someone finds a way around this new list, do we just keep adding additional rules until it is unmanageable? Is this what we want our City Government doing, controlling behavior? Or should the electeds be responsible to understand the ethical expectations of the City through its existing policy and be responsible to the constituents?
I would love to hear your thoughts 

Tagged as: ethics, yorba linda, Yorba Linda City Council