City considers options for Ethics Board

Published 1:30 am Friday, July 7, 2023

Following the spread of a controversial unreleased opinion, the way ahead for the city of Langley’s citizen-led Ethics Training and Advisory Board remains unclear.

At a meeting Monday night, the city council mulled four different options for the commission, which has not met since February due to a lack of quorum of members. The council can choose to take no action, or eliminate the board altogether. Changes to city code could be made to define the board as a quasi-judicial body or, conversely, a body that is only educational in nature.

Following the legal advice of the city’s lawyer, Mayor Scott Chaplin recommended the latter option, which would focus more on hypothetical situations rather than the specific actions of individuals. He also recommended disavowing all previous opinions submitted by the board, which concern the conduct of city officials.

A draft opinion of the board’s most recent opinion, which has not been officially released, was requested by business owner David Price and forwarded to members of the city council and The Record.

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, a claim which Chaplin has since disputed.

Price called into question the payment Morascini received from the Whidbey Camano 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. She performed the contract job, which wasn’t offered to the public.

“Regardless of the type of board, a board member receiving public contracts without proper public disclosure raises ethical questions, even if that person has a longstanding relationship with the city and does competent, professional work,” Price wrote in an email to the council July 1.

During the council meeting Monday, members of the public defended Morascini’s character and criticized Price’s release of the unofficial opinion, with some even calling for his punishment and others referring to his actions as bullying and harassment.

“It is in my opinion unacceptable for you to allow this frivolous, unfounded and misguided public challenge to Ms. Morascini’s personal integrity to go unresolved for months,” John Saunders said. “Your inaction has caused needless harm to Ms. Morascini’s reputation. While the mayor’s comments in The South Whidbey Record are welcome, they are too late and they are insufficient.”

The council, though not prepared to make a decision on the board’s future that night, did discuss some next steps.

Councilmember Thomas Gill said he thought the Ethics Board is largely doing the job that it’s supposed to be doing. He did not feel comfortable making it a quasi-judicial body, however, or dropping it altogether. Having it as an educational organization, as the mayor has suggested, enables a code with no teeth.

The issue, Gill said, comes down to the board currently being too restrictive on membership requirements, and it is not educated to the point it needs to be to make the decisions it does. He suggested reaching out to a former council member who was around 10 years ago when the board was started to learn more about its history and why it was created in the first place.

After completing some research, the council will discuss the issue again at a later meeting, perhaps in September.