Democracy is messy. Democracy is hard. But Democracy is hardly messy enough to ask law enforcement to attend a public meeting except in the most extreme of circumstances. And those circumstances do exist from time to time, but from media reports, they didn’t seem to exist at the recent meeting held on Lake Carmi’s (pronounced CAR-my) water quality where Emily Boedecker, the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, took the extraordinary step of having two armed game wardens attend.  According to Vermont Digger the Commissioner indicated that the purpose of having the game wardens present was to add “a calming effect and a reminder that it’s a public space.” Armed law enforcement usually does have a calming effect on the actions of rational minded people. It also likely stifles debate and discussion, even if the debate becomes heated at times.  As reported by Digger, Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts described prior meetings as a “good old-fashioned town meeting ‘with lots of engagement.'”

Undoubtedly passions are running high in a community feeling the tensions between deeply-rooted dairy based agriculture and a deeply-rooted tradition of recreation on the Lake. But calling in law enforcement, while it may be legal, should be a last resort, not a starting point. On this issue I speak from some personal experience. During my time on the Burlington City Council, a colleague and I utilized Robert’s Rules of Order to the frustration of the Council President. It was clear we pushed things, but at the same time, its clear that we were acting within the scope of the Rules. The Council President didn’t like the way things were going and called in a police presence, with the intent remove anyone the President believed to be disruptive, including members of the Council itself.  Of course removing members of a parliamentary body without due process before the body, raises its own issues.

Eventually the Burlington City Attorney’s Office weighed in and issued this memorandum.  The then City Attorney (n.b. in a classic tale of one degree of Vermont separation, the City Attorney at the time was Ken Schatz, who is currently the Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Children and Families and hence a colleague of Commissioner Boedecker) decided not to weigh in on the appropriateness of calling law enforcement to our meeting, but found that the Council President had not violated any laws or rules. The Vermont Supreme Court case of State v. Colby, cited in the memorandum, is particularly instructive on behavior that rises to the level of criminal disorderly conduct and requires that “the State must prove that a defendant’s conduct-‘and not the content of the activity’s expression-substantially impair[ed] the effective conduct of a meeting.'” And that’s a pretty high bar to meet.

In the case of the Lake Carmi meeting, law enforcement were in attendance from the beginning. Clearly nobody had engaged in any conduct at that point, for that meeting and needless to say, since there was no conduct, it could not have “substantially impaired” the meeting. It may have been prudent to have law enforcement on stand-by, (close but off-site) but it appears to have been poor judgment to start the meeting with them present.

The law sets the floor for the actions we expect of our public officials, ethics sets a higher standard. Vermont has an open meetings law that encourages public participation and debate. Ethics require high levels of tolerance for debate, even debate that its passionate, heated and emotional.

The Vermont Supreme Court just issued its long awaited opinion regarding public records in the 21st Century. As my 10th Grade history teacher was fond of saying, “Why do we go to the primary source? Because the primary source is primary.” (He also said “Why do we go to the map?…. The map tells us everything”). Sage advice. You can and should read the entire 20 page decision in Toensing v. The Attorney General of Vermont. The Court’s analysis was a relatively straight forward one. If a document, electronic or otherwise, was created in the course of agency business, it is a public record and subject to disclosure, regardless of where it is stored, unless a statutory exemption exists.

At the crux of Toensing was whether staff and officials from the Vermont Attorney general’s office, could be compelled to search through their personal email, for public records. The Court said that they could be. I do not know the backstory behind this lawsuit, but clearly, searching email correspondence is not a difficult task. There may be parameters and limitations based on where the content is stored and what the maintenance schedule for the email system is, as well as other technological hurdles, but my guess is that the vast majority personal email these days is web/cloud based and might actually be easier to search then work based platforms.

Coverage of the decision was of course nearly instantaneous with stories appearing rapidly in Vermont Digger, VPR (where I sometimes offer commentary)  Free Press, and Seven Days. This is not surprising considering the Vermont Journalism Trust (which essentially is Vermont Digger), Caledonian-Record Publishing Co., New England First Amendment Coalition, The Vermont Press Association, and Da Capo Publishing, Inc. (which also essentially is Seven Days). I say not surprising, because the Public Records Act (and its Federal analog the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)) is a literal treasure trove for the Fourth Estate. If they get the records they request, they have story. If they don’t get the records they request, because the request was denied in whole or in part, they have story. More on this in a subsequent post.

From an ethics in government standpoint, the position taken by the State was a perplexing one. Essentially the State argued that a requestor should start with the presumption, that public employees did not send emails from non-government accounts, and in order to be able to request such records, the requestor would first need to make a showing that an employee had used a private account to transmit or create public records. This of course ends in reasoning contrary to the intent of the Public Records Act. How could a requestor possibly know what does or does not exist? That’s the whole reason why transparency laws were created in the first place. To allow the public (and by extension the media) to determine what exactly does exist and to “publish” it if it is something deemed worthy of public interest.

Public interest is an interesting concept, the California Supreme Court in City of San Jose v. Superior Court, (cited by the Vermont Court) recently stated that “Communications that are primarily personal, containing no more than incidental mentions of agency business, generally will not constitute public records. For example, the public might be titillated to learn that not all agency workers enjoy the company of their colleagues, or hold them in high regard [emphasis mine]. However, an employee’s electronic musings about a colleague’s personal shortcomings will often fall far short of being a ‘writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business.’” Whether gossip is a public record in Vermont, will have to wait until another day.

While the Vermont Supreme Court ultimately determined that in Vermont, government employees must search their private email accounts and certify that they have done the same, they declined to go as far as California and require that an affidavit be submitted as part of the search process. The VSC’s reasoning was essentially that we rely on the representations of employees in record requests all the time, why should a search of their private email be any different?

But it is different! Why? Well why was the employee sending email concerning state government business from a private account in the first instance? There is simply no conceivable reason that I can think of why this would need to occur. Happy to take comments if you can think of one. According to the Vermont Court, “state policy on internet use puts state employees on notice that employees with state email accounts must not routinely use personal email accounts to conduct state business without approval from the Secretary of Administration.” Again, why would a state employee from the governor on down, need to use a personal email address for agency business….ever?

I would suggest that if a government employee is using a private email to conduct public business, there is a reason. I won’t speculate here as to what that reason might be, but it certainly raises questions. And when questions are raised, requiring an affidavit, certainly makes the person signing an affidavit think twice as to what they are representing to the world, “under the pains and penalties of perjury.”

As previously advertised, yesterday I had the pleasure of observing the inaugural meeting of the Vermont Ethics Commission. As one would expect in a first meeting, most of the discussion was centered around the nuts and bolts of the work that the Commission has before it in the months ahead. Since the Commission, like most similarly situated entities in Vermont are volunteers who get compensated for milage, lunch, a $50 per diem and a hardy “thank you for your public service” the most pressing issue facing the Commission is hiring a Executive Director, who will carry out the vast majority of the Commission’s day to day functions.

So what does the Commission do? At the onset, not all that much. The enabling statute really sets out more of an advisory, gatekeeper roll, with no enforcement powers. While the Commission will have the ability to accept and screen ethics complaints, any complaint with legs will need to be referred out to the appropriate regulatory entity. Since the Commission is an independent (in that it does not report to the Governor) entity of the Executive Branch, compliance with referrals to the legislature (based on allegations concerning legislators) and judiciary (based on allegations concerning government attorneys and judges) is essentially based on the good will of the receiving branch of government. Campaign finance questions get referred to the Attorney General (or theoretically State’s Attorney, but this seems unlikely) and allegations in respect to the to-be-drafted Department of Human Resources’ (DHR) Employee Code of Ethics get sent to Department.

FUN FACT: The DHR is in the process of drafting its own Code of Ethics, at the same time the Commission is charged with drafting a State Code of Ethics in consultation with DHR. Did you follow that? Two codes of ethics. Why do we need two codes of ethics regulating state employees you ask? Well it seems that at least the Commission’s Code will be more of an aspirational guideline, then something that can be used for enforcement purposes.

Another provision of the law concerns the “required” disclosure by candidates for statewide and legislative offices of: 1) sources of personal income; 2) 10% or greater corporate ownership; 3) leases and contracts with the State; 4) a copy of the IRS 1040 tax returns; and 5) any board that the candidate sits on.  Oh and most of these provisions also apply to the candidate’s spouse/domestic partner (a wrinkle that begs for its own blog post).  But here’s the kicker, although the controlling statute states that the candidate “shall” file these disclosures, there is no penalty for not filing the disclosures. Evidently the legislature decided to leave it to the political process, instead of the legal process to figure out the effect of non-compliance.

Campaign finance disclosure “requirements.”

One of the more perplexing outtakes of the meeting is that the Commission can provide written “guidance” to officers and employees, but that the guidance received is confidential (thus creating an exemption to the Vermont Public Records Act) unless the requestor decides to make it public. Now I can understand taking out identifying information (name, agency, etc.) in the guidance, but I would think it is ultimately of fundamental importance that the public be informed of the type of ethics advice being provided by the Commission, to state employees. At the most basic level, if this information is withheld how is the public supposed to evaluate whether the Commission is serving its intended purpose? Especially since in this instance it appears as though that purpose is focused on education and training, rather than penalties and enforcement. When I raised this issue on Twitter, the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office chimed in about encouraging employees to ask for help and acknowledged that in respect to the Public Records Act “transparency isn’t always the answer…some exceptions are ok.” This was an interesting and appreciated comment from an office currently on its 4th annual Transparency Tour. More thoughts on this in an upcoming post.

The Commission has its work cut out for it. Hiring a Executive Director; convincing the public that education and training (rather than enforcement) will be enough; and getting a viable, working entity up and running by January 1, 2018 (the date the powers of the Commission go into effect). I for one am looking forward to following the Commission’s progress to see if it can succeed in this endeavor, within the parameters it’s been given.

The term transparency has become a hackneyed buzzword as it applies to government.  The natural inference is that a transparent government, means an ethical government.  But that begs the question, why can’t we just trust that government, made up of people with good intentions, will just do the right thing? Ultimately government is made up of people, and people even those with the best of intentions, are human and subject to the entire panoply of misfeasance and malfeasance.

The Vermont Ethics Commission will soon be kicking off its inaugural meeting.  The Commission was created by the legislature over this past session and full details on the Commission and its purposes can be found here. Whether the Commission is successful, will ultimately depend on the time and resources it is allotted to carry out its functions.

We are fortunate to live and work in Vermont. Up until now, we have not been plagued with a host of ethical dilemmas like so much of the outside world. But times are changing.  The purpose of this blog is in part to explore that changing world and the flattening of the Earth, that in turn has created complicated ethical dilemmas, even in a small, relatively isolated state like Vermont.

Maple Syrup, Phish and Ben and Jerry’s are nice symbols, but represent the carefully curated, outward projections of our state. Here we’ll take an inward look and hopefully serve as a platform for debate and discussion of what it means to be ethical and how that term is being interpreted by the various entities charged with regulating ethics and associated conduct.

As the name for this post suggests, one of the first codified systems of ethics was the Bible. While that document may have served certain populations well for centuries, it was not designed to cover the complexities of contemporary life. In the posts ahead, we’ll look at some of the constructs that do serve that purpose, explore how they serve it and discuss ways of improving the system.