Orange County Supervisors unanimously approved a new ethics code for themselves just three days before their former colleague is set to begin a five year sentence in federal prison after repeatedly violating that code for years.
But the new code doesn’t include any new punishments for elected leaders – the worst punishment they can face is an HR investigation, the results of which may or may not be made public.
On Tuesday afternoon, supervisors added several new lines to their decades old code of ethics, requiring that newly elected officials sign it and acknowledge they wouldn’t act for personal gain in their office.
The lack of meaningful guardrails led to complaints from Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who called for the update last December and questioned what the county’s Campaign Finance and Ethics Commission had worked on for the last eight months.
“I think this is probably one of the weakest responses I could’ve expected,” Sarmiento said at the supervisor’s Tuesday meeting. “I’m really saddened for the public.”
He also highlighted how county leaders were only set to recoup around $878,000 from Andrew Do, a former county supervisor who helped divert over $10 million in COVID-19 contracts to a nonprofit whose leaders allegedly stole most of the money.
[Read: Former OC Supervisor Ordered to Repay $878,000 for Role in Bribery Scheme]
“These code of ethics could at least help steer us away from what we’re still experiencing,” Sarmiento said. “That is an injustice we should be able to avoid.”
Other supervisors praised the new code as another in a series of small steps, with county Supervisor Katrina Foley highlighting how they’d already voted to change rules on how supervisors move forward with contracts and gave the county CEO direct contract oversight.
“This is another step forward for accountability,” Foley said.
She also asked what it would take to make substantial upgrades to the commission to give it more teeth, with county lawyer Leon Page noting it was unclear what would require approval from the voters and what wouldn’t.
“There might be an opportunity for the board itself to make those changes,” Page said. “There may be a way to do that.”
Foley also highlighted another limit of the commission – they only have a single staff member, director Denah Hoard.
“If we wanted to do more, we’d have to consider staffing as well cause one person can only do so much,” Foley said.
The board members also praised the newly written protections for whistleblowers, with new language explicitly directing county supervisors and executives not to bother people who come forward in good faith.
“The most critical improvement in this update is the explicit protection of whistleblowers,” said Supervisor Doug Chaffee. “No one should be discouraged from filing a complaint…it’s a meaningful enhancement to the policy.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.