Sam Hardiman and Bill Dries with The Daily Memphian broke the story on Monday that the City of Memphis was investigating ethics violations of two members of the City Council and someone on staff. Reporting revealed that Council Chairwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington, Councilman J.B. Smiley, and Chief Administrator Ashleigh Hayes were the subjects of the investigation.
City Attorney Tannera Gibson retained outside counsel Brian Faughnan to conduct the inquiry. Faughnan was previously hired by the Shelby County Attorney to look into alleged ethics violations by former County Commissioner Edmund Ford, Jr. That investigation found that Ford had violated the county’s ethics policy and was the impetus for the federal investigation that led to Ford pleading guilty to tax evasion.
The ethics complaint apparently stems from the firing of former Chief Administrator Brooke Hyman, who complained that Swearengen-Washington was using City funds to support her husband’s church and herself. Hyman was fired the next week, and following the publishing of the story from The Daily Memphian, Swearengen-Washington filed her own ethics complaint against Hyman.
Initial reports indicated that Smiley and Hayes were subjects of the investigation. However, Smiley stated on the record and later issued a statement from his attorney that he and Hayes were believed to have information relevant to the investigation but were not being investigated themselves. CBS affiliate WREG reported, though, that a source within the City had confirmed that two council members were under investigation.
The Daily Memphian story stated that the complaint alleges that Swearengen-Washington had pressured staff to make donations to a nonprofit and that she had used city funds to purchase one hundred copies of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ book 107 Days, many of which she retained for personal use. Swearengen-Washington, two months earlier, raised eyebrows when she proposed overhauling the IT Department in which her niece works. Prior to that, she advocated for her niece to be hired as Council staff, which Hyman, Chief Administrator at the time, refused to do. It is unclear whether these incidents are also a part of the complaint.
After Operation: Tennessee Waltz in 2005, which resulted in the indictments and convictions of multiple local and state elected officials, the state legislature passed a law requiring local legislative bodies to adopt codes of ethics by ordinance and to establish processes for independent investigations. This was my first year on the County Commission in 2006. These codes of ethics were primarily based on a model created by the Municipal Technical Assistance Service (MTAS). The ordinances established a Board of Ethics with seats filled by members of the community. There was also ethics training (though not required in local governments) and an ethics officer. Yet, the same overt and unsophisticated violations of ethics and common sense laws continue to be exposed.
Admittedly, there are some instances where the ethics of the situation are unclear. In other cases, the particular processes of government finance can be confusing and unclear. The alleged instances in this complaint and other recent violations are NOT complicated. There is no nuance to pressuring an employee to give to your nonprofit or taking property purchased with government funds and dispersing it to others outside of government. There is no gray area when it comes to using your power and position to help a relative secure employment. The issue here is not ignorance, but entitlement.