Bethlehem council weighs conflict-of-interest ordinance

The Bethlehem City Council is one step closer to enacting a conflict-of-interest ordinance.

At a Wednesday committee meeting council members weighed an ordinance sponsored by Paige Van Wirt that seeks to limit council members’ ability to be influenced by outside interests.

“It’s important that our citizens understand we are voting free and clear of outside influence,” Van Wirt said.

If passed, the ordinance would require some elected officials to abstain from voting on or taking official action on matters “in which they have a financial interest.” Financial interest is defined as campaign contributions above $250, or more than 10% investment or ownership in a business or property. It applies to family members as well as the officials themselves.

The requirements would apply to council members, the city controller and appointed board members, such as the zoning hearing board and historical conservation commission.

Contributions from Political Action Committee and union groups who contribute to candidates are exempt from vote recusal requirements, and some council members and members of the public questioned why.

“I’m not sure why they should get a bye,” said Bethlehem Hotel owner Bruce Haines.

Van Wirt said unions and PACS are exempt because they represent a class or larger group of people rather than an individual, business or small group that stands to financially benefit. Other council members said exempting PACs might be necessary to ensure potential candidates that lack the financial means to run can still do so.

Some PACs explicitly support underrepresented candidates, member Rachel Leon said, such as veterans or Latinos. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to ask candidates to recuse themselves from votes that concern their own identity, she said.

“On one hand I see why we should have no exemptions and I really agree with that, but on the other hand I don’t want to discourage people from running because they don’t have the financial capacity,” Leon said. “When I ran, it was very difficult and my family had to make a lot of sacrifices in order to do it.

“I would not want to discourage anyone from running because they could not financially make it work.”

Some council members also considered how to prevent other kinds of undue influence over elected officials. For example, how could the city ensure that council members will not vote to financially benefit friends, neighbors or more distant family members?

But it’s impossible to codify all the subtleties of political power and influence, Van Wirt said, which is why the ordinance targets monetary influence specifically.

“It has to be money because there’s just no way to put into law the subtleties of various personal relationships,” Van Wirt said. “We’re trying really hard to not let perfect be the enemy of the good and useful.”

The ordinance also could face legal issues, solicitor Brian Panella said. He declined to go into detail at Wednesday’s meeting, citing confidential legal advice, but said a possible concern is restricting free speech.

“Any time that there’s an idea of restriction of speech, and a vote could be qualified as a restriction of speech, that is a red flag in my head,” Panella said.

Legal concerns played a part in the demise of a sweeping ethics measure that the council considered in 2017. It would have created an ethics commission to review violations, publicly censure violators and call for their suspension or termination, and impose up to $1,000 fines.

Some of the measures proposed were duplicates of legal mechanisms already established by the statewide Ethics Commissions, according to former Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli.

The city council will schedule another committee of the whole meeting on the ethics ordinance.