Reyna Crooms & Sutton Young / GNP contributors
Most people in Greenville probably don’t think much about the city council except at election time and when it makes a decision that proves to be unpopular.
But the council holds a lot of sway over every citizen’s everyday life.
If you’re a property owner, council members set your property tax rate. They spend your tax money too. Just this May they approved a $149.6 million budget to pay for things like police and fire/rescue services, parks and more.
The city council matters. And so do the ethics of each of its members.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines ethics as “moral principles that govern a person's behavior of the conducting of an activity.”
The Greenville News Project spent the last three months looking at how city council members apply ethics to the day-to-day commitments that come along with serving on the council.
The News Project reached out to all seven members of the council. It spoke with five members of the council about serving the community, personal business and how ethics apply to it all.
What ethics means to the city council
Council members can receive their ethics training from a few different resources, including the North Carolina League of Municipalities and the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The North Carolina League of Municipalities offers classes in person and virtually for all members. The purpose of the league is to help people who hold leadership positions in the state learn how to better serve the community.
“We take a class with the North Carolina Municipal Government Association,” said Council Member and District 2 representative Rose H. Glover. “And that’s basically to make sure that we know what we can and cannot do legally and how we can help our people.”
Glover says she also refers to the book Municipal Government in North Carolina for guidance. Glover even referred to this book as her “bible” and says she and other council members often use the book alongside class trainings when making decisions for the community.
According to the documents from city spokesperson Brock Letchworth, “ethics training must cover laws and principles that govern conflicts of interest.”
Letchworth said that members of all governing boards are required to have at least two hours of ethics training. The training should take place within 12 months of the government official's initial election.
The code of ethics for the City of Greenville states that certain ethical guidelines are in place to help hold the elected city council to certain standards.
The code exists to help regulate what behavior is appropriate in certain cases for the council. The city’s ethics code goes over obeyance of applicable laws, integrity and independence, avoidance of impropriety, faithful performance duties and openness.
“I think ethics is good for our everyday life,” said council member Monica Daniels. “That's how we teach our children to do the right thing and to treat people kindly. I think as we grow in life and we become these professional individuals, it's even more important. You have to trust those that are there to serve and if people don't trust you, they won't vote for you.”
According to Daniels and the rest of the city council, government ethics carry high importance for elected officials. Not only do these officials try to abide by these ethics, but they know that following ethics leaves a positive impact on the community.
“We have to be mindful of why we do what we do,” said Daniels. “Sitting on the City Council or serving those in the community. There's a job that we are called to do, that we agreed to do, and we should do that without one hand washing the other type thing.”
How council members apply ethics
Council member Rick Smiley walks a fine line when it comes to ethics. He serves as the District 4 representative, and he works at East Carolina University as its lead research administrator. ECU—with its tens of thousands of students, teachers, administrators and staff—plays an outsized role in Greenville.
Smiley strikes the balance. “[The] needs of the community are above any personal gain or profit. That’s what ethics is. The work you’re doing is on the behalf of others,” he said.
“You’ve stood for a position of public trust. You’ve asked people to allow you to make decisions on their behalf,” he said.
Anything that elected officials say or do is a “public document,” said council member and District 3 representative Marion Blackburn. “I can’t hide stuff. On a personal level, I can’t take steps to conceal my text messages,” she said.
Ethics are ethics no matter the level of government, Greenville City Council at-large member Will Bell said.
“Ethics should be consistent across the board,” he said. "No matter whether they're at the local level, or the federal level, or even state level should be making sure that they are acting in a proper way that is consistent with good ethics.”
Elected officials also come across conflict-of-interest situations. Many of these revolve around doing what is best for them instead of doing what is best for the area they are serving, something Smiley knows well.
“It would be inappropriate for me to represent ECU in any dealing it did with the city or represent the city in any dealing it did with ECU,” he said. “So in those cases, I have to disclose that to the university, and they put a plan in place that if anything ever comes before me, you know, like I work in a contracting office.”
Blackburn recalled that the first time she ran for city council, she was put in a situation that would benefit her campaign. But she said this is not a conflict of interest, but just politics.
“I received some large campaign contributions” said Blackburn. “And then when those people associated with those campaign contributions had issues or issues tangentially related to them, and their business come before the city council, I felt a twinge. I felt caught. And it was an uncomfortable feeling for me.”
Ethics play a role in all the decisions made by the city council. Ethics can often be confused with morality and conflict with people's personal standards of right and wrong.
Morality and ethics go hand in hand, they are not the same. Ethics are considered the fine lining of how people should behave. Morals are an individual’s personal beliefs and what they think is good or bad.
Morals are personal beliefs about right and wrong.
Ethics and the crypto mining firm
Recently, the city backed Compute North’s plans to build a crypto mining facility in city limits, near Belvoir Elementary School, but the plan has been put on hold. Crypto mining uses quite a lot of electricity, something that many people in the city wanted to prevent.
Bell said that the Greenville Utilities Commission made the recommendation to the city to get involved with the Compute North.
“When they came with a recommendation for us to do that, we decided to jump on board with it,” said Bell.
Some residents protested that decision. Some even went so far as to picket in front of the city office building downtown.
Prior to being elected to the council, Blackburn did not support of the Compute North plan. She said it is not something the city should invest in.
“My moral compass said no,” said Blackburn. “To me, this is not the kind of long term business and industry investment that we want for the, for our city that will benefit all people of our community.”
There were other aspects to this project that concerned Blackburn.
“Something like this, that's going to have a tremendous amount of noise,” she said. “And it's going to be associated with such environmental waste I didn't want to see in our city.”
Blackburn also had concerns about how this project would affect people living in that area.
“We already have folks who some folks were living in very fragile environmental conditions such as living in floodplains,” she said. “A lot of children over there, we have two schools north of the river at least.”
Smiley thought of the firm as a standard business proposal.
“It was ultimately involved with Compute North, but the rule the specific action that came to council would be applicable to anybody who wanted to do what they what they wanted to do," he said.
So was it ethical for the city to get involved with the crypto-mining firm?
“Ethical, to my understanding, applies to does it follow rules. And that, to me, is an open-ended question,” said Blackburn.
Crooms and Young reported this story for the fall 2022 class, In-Depth Reporting.
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