San Bernardino has long been a hotbed for corruption. Recent efforts to clean up their act from within were laughed away, that’s why the county is looking at outsourcing its watchdog responsibilities.
The plan is to have the Fair Political Practices Commission provide ethics oversight for the county, which currently operates without an ethics board at all. However, the laws don’t yet exist to allow the state agency to provide the service. Pending legislation stalled, and has now been offered as an amendment to other legislation, hoping to be approved before the April 27 deadline.
If the bill goes through, the FPPC guidelines that are used for state officials would apply to San Bernardino, which includes contributions to political campaigns. In the past, one corruption inquiry looked into claims that $400,000 in campaign contributions served as bribes to secure a $100 million settlement from the county.
From the Press Enterprise:
Scandal-scarred San Bernardino County wants to become the first local government in California to outsource an ethics program to the state Fair Political Practices Commission.
First, though, the county needs legislation allowing the state watchdog agency to provide the service, and a key deadline is in less than two weeks.
Read the full article here.