To the Editor:
With all due respect to my colleague critics of our fair city’s government, we would do well to refrain from accusing the city manager of being unable to be trusted to hire an ethics investigator when the city manager may have gone as far out on a limb as he dares to even broach the notion of empowering a single person to systemically pursue ethics.
An “independent elected ethics ombudsman” is likewise not the answer. For the same reason two excellent City Council members are no longer on City Council merely because their names didn’t appear on a blue sheet of paper voters were given, an elected ombudsman whose name appeared on such paper would be politically beholden, therefore less independent than one the city manager hires professionally.
An elected ombudsman beholden to local political interests would fulfill Harry Covert’s worst fears about politically correct witch hunts, investigating civic groups for “racial insensitivity” for not “adequately considering” minority employment prospects generated by egregious overdevelopment, while conveniently cherry picking facts to give a patina of legitimacy to city hall’s abuses.
Critics might do well to ask ourselves how much worse our city would run but for the things staff prevents but about which we never find out.
Dino Drui, Alexandria