A Year of Living Ethically

(page 1 of 3)

He was faced with a bulging crime rate and a rusting city seemingly in a moral decline. So New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani assumed office and promptly took aim at ... squeegee men. Giuliani's first priority was stopping the street people who would preemptively wash windows of gridlocked cars, then demand payment. Big deal, right? The man must have been temporarily insane.

Eight years and a series of stepped-up actions later, the Super Mayor's bottom-to-top strategy was judged wildly successful. Crime was down. Times Square got a makeover. And New York—even post–September 11—was a more livable city.

“It's just the Ethics Commission's first year, but they're going after sacred ground.”

—Bob Ottilie

“Kiss my ass—who are these people? Who are they to decide who is ethical? This is a horrible idea. “

—Larry Remer

“The mayor says he wants to be strong on ethics. But I think we've embraced ethics more as a campaign slogan than a real tool of reform.”

—Mike Aguirre

“It's too soon to say if they should be stronger—but I think they have all the tools they need.”

—Mayor Dick Murphy

Now consider Charlie Walker's task. The executive director of the city of San Diego's first-ever Ethics Commission came into office facing an uphill battle. Topping a mountain of public discontent: an improper gift–giving scandal involving Padres owner John Moores and former city councilmember Valerie Stallings.

Careful not to stumble out of the gate, Walker has taken pains not to overstep. With a Giuliani-esque, baby-step approach, Walker's latched onto a long-ignored facet of political campaigning: nonpayment of vendor debt.

What? With developers oozing in and out of politicians' pockets and back-room deals seemingly de rigueur, why start with an obscure topic like vendor debt? More important, what the hell is vendor debt?

“It's an important issue because it means candidates for office are spending more money than they are taking in, and that's an unfair advantage,” says lawyer Bob Ottilie, himself a former political horse. By city ordinance, all goods or services rendered to a political-office seeker must be paid within 90 days. Typical vendors might include consultants, fund-raisers or the printing companies that produce brochures and those road-cluttering election signs.

“Major campaigns routinely overspend,” says Ottilie. “Because if a candidate loses, a lot of vendors won't pursue the debt. And the city, over at least the past 20 years, has shown it won't pursue this.”

Ottilie is “thoroughly impressed” by the aggressive response from the commission to the public's vendor-debt complaints. “And I'm surprised they're doing it,” he says. “It's just the Ethics Commission's first year, but they're going after sacred ground. This is something people have looked the other way on for years.

“This is not politics as usual—and that's great. I hear talk in the community—for the first time—that people are aware of having to pay their debts on time. [Mayor] Dick Murphy deserves a lot of credit for creating this new focus on ethics.”

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »