Town board considers ethics code for advisory boards

The Wake Forest commissioners and mayor are now required by the state to subscribe to a code of ethics, and during the retreat last winter the current board members discussed whether members of the town’s advisory boards should also be required to have and to perform their duties according to an ethics code.

“I didn’t like the original one, and I don’t know if I’m going to like this one or not,” Mayor Vivian Jones said.

Your concern was that it was too long, Virginia Jones, director of the town’s human resources department, said. The town board’s code, written in 2010, is three pages long; Jones said the proposed code for advisory boards is four pages long because there is much more social media since 2010.

Commissioner Brian Pate and other commissioners said they do see a need for an ethics code. “My biggest problem,” Pate said, is people on the advisory boards making comments on Facebook and giving incorrect information. It is one thing to have a discussion and another to be critical of the town. We’ve had one instance where people got appointed for a single issue. We have had scenarios where people should have recused themselves and didn’t.”

Commissioner Anne Reeve chimed in, saying people on the advisory boards have a responsibility and should have ethics. She has seen advisory board people being demanding and forceful. “They think they make the decisions.”

“My problem is that there is no accountability,” Commissioner Greg Harrington said.

If there was a written policy it would give us the ability to ask them to resign, Pate said.

The item will be on the agenda for the town board’s business meeting on Dec. 18.

The board spent the first part of the work session hearing from several applicants for the design review board, the board of adjustment and the planning board. The board will make appointments to those boards also on Dec. 18.