Roosevelt commission votes to keep ethics ordinance but consider amendments

The Roosevelt County Commission voted 3-2 Tuesday to keep its ethics ordinance, but plans to consider amendments in the future.

The ordinance is a 14-page document that details the promotion of the ethical conduct of public officials within the county and addresses interference by county commissioners or other elected officials.

Commissioner Roy Lee Crisswell said the ethics ordinance in place “hampers transparency” between the employees of the county and the commissioners. He said the ordinance suggests employees of the county cannot address issues regarding their department with their department leaders or the commission.

Commissioners Tina Dixon and Dennis Lopez agreed with Crisswell’s assessment.

“If they (the employees) want to voice a concern within their department and they don’t feel like they can go to their head … I think they should be able to (go to commissioners) and I think this ordinance prohibits that,” Crisswell said.

The section that was brought to the commission’s attention from Crisswell was section 6.C.4. Crisswell said the section states employees cannot give or receive information from the commission, but instead have to communicate their concerns through county management.

He said the language of the current ordinance gives “too much power” to the county manager and upper management employees.

Lopez suggested the commission create a new ethics ordinance first then considers the dismissal of the current document.

Commissioner Paul Grider and Commissioner Rodney Savage were not in favor of removing the ethics ordinance. However, Grider did favor the suggestion in amending the ordinance later down the line.

Savage said he didn’t see the issue other commissioners were seeing. He said when he read the document, he felt the document protected the commission’s right to seek information from county employees.

“Doing away with the whole ordinance is like throwing out the baby in the bath water,” Savage said.