Future of Langley ethics board unclear

Published 1:30 am Friday, June 30, 2023

Langley officials may soon decide the future of a city committee that has made controversial recommendations and has been on hiatus for months because of a lack of members.

The city council will discuss possibly re-establishing the Ethics Training and Advisory Board at the Monday, July 3 meeting.

The Ethics Training and Advisory Board, which is composed of volunteers, provides advisory opinions about the application of the city’s ethics code at the request of officials, employees, consultants, volunteers, vendors or citizens upon receipt of an official advisory form. The board last met in February, after which a lack of members prevented them from convening again.

Past advisory opinions the board has released have concerned the actions of mayors, city council members and even Ethics Board members themselves.

The board’s most recent opinion, dated December 2022, remains unofficially released and was obtained through a citizen’s public records request. The draft opinion, which was requested by business owner David Price, is in response to the conduct of a member on the Whidbey Camano Joint Tourism Board.

The Ethics Board found that Inge Morascini, executive director of the Langley Chamber of Commerce, acted as a city official and thus is subject to Langley’s ethics code. Price called into question the payment she received from the Joint Tourism Board in 2021 to produce a tourism campaign while serving as a member of the board, labeling it as a conflict of interest. Morascini performed the contract job, which wasn’t offered to the public, outside of her role as chamber director.

“There is no identifiable evidence in the Whidbey Camano Joint Tourism Board meeting minutes to suggest any mention of conflicts of interest being declared or discussed,” the Ethics Board opinion stated. “There is also no evidence in meeting minutes that a contract was out for bid.”

Mayor Scott Chaplin wrote in an email to The Record that Morascini is not a city official and, therefore, not under the purview of the Ethics Board. Based on advice from legal counsel, Chaplin decided that the draft opinion should be returned to the Ethics Board for reconsideration and possible revisions. That was complicated, however, by the lack of members on the board.

The mayor also took umbrage with the board’s process.

“I do not blame the members of the Ethics Commission,” he wrote. “While they were well intentioned and of impeccable integrity, the procedures they were operating under were systemically unfair and problematic and did not follow the intent and spirit of the city’s code for the Commission to be an educational and informational advisory body, not a punitive body.”

Chaplin added that his own review of the situation has led him to the conclusion that the board’s findings were “completely off base and not factually accurate.”

“My experience working with Ms. Morascini over the past couple of years is that, while we don’t always agree, she is a tireless, highly competent professional and the notion that she had hoped to make some small financial gain in an unethical manner is completely ludicrous,” he said.

Price recently brought the draft advisory opinion to the attention of the city council. Chaplin admonished him for forwarding the public record to the council because it “was not deemed ready for their consideration.”

The council will discuss the Ethics Board and its procedures — but not the draft opinion — at its meeting next week.

“Our lawyers strongly urge the City to not have the commission delve into accusations against a particular person, but rather to just form opinions about general situations,” Chaplin said in an email Thursday.

He added that the Joint Tourism Board is currently working with the state auditor and Island County to determine which contracts need to go out to bid for the 2024 budget. The board has gone through some changes in the past few years to increase transparency, including posting the Zoom link for meetings.