NATCHEZ, Miss. – Mayor Dan Gibson and aldermen have clarified legal explanations of when board members must excuse themselves from meetings when items come up that could financially benefit their relatives.
Disputes and confusion have arisen at board meetings in recent months about whether Natchez aldermen Ben Davis and Felicia Bridgewater-Irving must step out of the meeting room when votes are taken on expenditures for the Natchez Transit System and the Natchez Fire Department. Davis’ brother is Natchez transit director. Bridgewater-Irving’s son is a city fireman.
In November, Bridgewater-Irving refused to step out of the board room when NFD financial matters came up. Gibson and board attorney Jack Lazarus cited legal opinions from the Mississippi Ethics Commission saying it’s a conflict of interest for her to be present. However, Bridgewater-Irving maintained she can remain as long as she doesn’t vote.
State law says aldermen must excuse themselves from board meetings when matters arise that effect a direct “monetary benefit” to relatives, such as hirings, job promotions, salaries, travel expenses and budgets that fund their compensation. The requirement does not apply to such actions as buying department vehicles or paying general expenses.
Alderman Davis’ brother Louis Davis was appointed by the board as city transit director in July, prompting legal questions about this promotion.
For an opinion the state Ethics Commission issued in September, the question was asked: “May a city employee remain employed, be promoted and receive a pay increase if his brother is a city alderman and the two are financially independent?”
The Ethics Commission answered that the brother can remain employed by the city if the alderman undertakes a “total and complete recusal” on issues directly impacting his brother’s job.
“A total and complete recusal requires that the alderman not only avoid debating, discussing or taking action on the subject matter during official meetings or deliberations, but he should also avoid discussing the subject matter with other city officials or employees,” states the commission’s opinion.
“This restriction includes casual comments, as well as detailed discussions, made in person, by telephone or by any other means. An abstention is considered a vote with the majority and is not a recusal. Furthermore, the minutes of the meeting should state the recusing alderman left the room before the matter came before the board and did not return until after the vote.”
Thank you for this writing and printing this article. Our system is not perfect, but rule of law has served us well for close to 250 years. There are legitimate ways to amend and change laws, so long as all of the people have the unfettered right to participate in the changes made. And, active engagement at the local level is key to our republican form of representative democracy. It is past time for our schools to return to teaching the fundamentals of our obligations with civics and government, one of the few things in this life in which each of us has an equal stake.
At that first meeting of the board when this issue arose as reported here, Mayor Gibson pipes in and says Alerwoman Bridgewater Irving has a son who is a fireman! She should recuse herself also.
What’s amazing is that the first opinion stated in the summary on September 6, 2024, “However, the alderman must fully recuse from any matter that could result in a monetary benefit to the brother, pursuant to Section 25-4-105(1).”
But the city attorney fails to mention that and allowed 4 meetings to go by with serious questions. The alderwoman had asked for one from the AG.He implied he was following the Attorney’s Opinion. But there was no AG opinion. He had asked the Ethics Commission again and on October 4, he declared that recusal was necessary for going over the docket even if there was nothing on the docket for the departments. Irving refused. As it turns out, the question the city attorney pointed to the answer. The real question is of Nepotism which these two would not be violating according to that law.
Then the last meeting, all of sudden, the city attorney finds the language from the first opinion on the first page that says, “However, the alderman must fully recuse from any matter that could result in a monetary benefit to the brother, pursuant to Section 25-4-105(1).”
I guess he forgot to read the rest of the sentence. Let’s talk about ethics. Was it ethical of the attorney to mislead, misinform and indicate he had an AG opinion when he did not have such an opinion and passes off another Ethics Opinion as an AG Opinion he didn’t ask for? I have all the documents. I did FOIA request. The City Attorney pretended to the clerk that he had sent it to me. I got 72 pages from Westlaw printed out about Section 25-4-105(1). He paid $8.40 to mail it to me. That was not what I asked for. He knew what he said and he knew I knew what he said and here he is trying to cover it up. So, yeah, let’s talk about ethics, Mr. City Attorney
The first ethics opinion dated September 6, 2024, says in the summary: Copied from Ethics Commission website:
Ethics Opinion
24-020-E 24020.pdf
Summary
A city employee may remain employed, be promoted and receive a pay increase if his brother is a city alderman and the two are financially independent. Because the alderman and the city employee are financially independent from each other, no violation of Section 109, Miss. Const. of 1890, or Section 25-4-105(2), Miss. Code of 1972, will occur. However, the alderman must fully recuse from any matter that could result in a monetary benefit to the brother, pursuant to Section 25-4-105(1).
I concur with Paul! Thank you for writing this up. The ethics commission clearly went too far with this and caused more harm than good. Looking through past opinions on the same subject some say that the Attorney General should be consulted about the Nepotism law. The law they cite was not the correct one here at all, either.
The Chief of Staff for the Ethics Commission is Tom Hood. He has been there for so long that now he calls himself “Chief Counsel.” Sorry, dude, that is not in the statutes. But what is in the statute is the fact that he can’t write opinions himself as Chief of Staff. The Commission has members on a rotating basis, 2 seats are rotated out and replaced every two years for 6 years. I think it is time for Tom Hood to rotate out, IMO.