City Councilman Andrae McGary has the natural gifts to make a fine public servant. He’s smart, quick, well-spoken and willing to step up to address a range of civic issues, from gang-related violence to funding for public art. His latest ethics-related stumble, however, suggests the young Council member, elected last year at the age of 29, hasn’t yet learned to recognize potential conflicts of interest.
The current issue arose after Mr. McGary, who recently became a radio-show host, started a website to elicit donations to a fund to help Tonya Craft, the former North Georgia, kindergarten teacher whom a jury acquitted two weeks ago of 22 counts of child molestation after a widely covered weeks-long trial.
The website described the heavy personal and financial costs Ms. Craft incurred in a two-year legal battle to clear her name, and directed citizens interested in helping her recover to a PayPal account. The site noted that donations to the account would be transferred to another website, truthfortonya.com. It also directed donors with questions about the “validity” of the site to contact Mr. McGary at his City Council e-mail address or telephone.
However well intended, Mr. McGary’s action reflected a mistake similar to that which prompted him to step away from a previous new job in April as the director of the city’s regional Homeless Coalition: It raised a potential conflict of interest that centered around receipt of money in possible violation of the ethical guidelines that constrict City Council members.
Like the coalition job, the latest conflict should have been apparent.
Mr. McGary could have avoided it by having the website established by a credible third-party subject to an independent audit, or by an agent for Ms. Craft. As City Attorney Mike McMahan pointed out, Mr. McGary should have listed his radio-station address as a contact point and omitted any mention of his city position. He should not have listed his City Council office e-mail or telephone number for questions about donations, nor he should have had any financial access to the account.
Either would taint his position as a City Council member by raising the possibility that he would use his elective office to raise money or acquire financial benefits. It would be a clear ethical violation to trade on his public office or authority to raise money for a matter not specifically connected to his City Council job and public accountability. Just mentioning his city title in such a solicitation raises the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Though that should have been obvious, Mr. McGary sounded surprised when the issue was raised last Thursday by City Council Chairman Manny Rico. Mr. McGary contended that he was not asking people to send money to his City Council address. Mr. Rico correctly pointed out, however, that the City Code specifically states that council members may not use their position for financial gain for themselves or any other person or entity.
Mr. McGary seemed similarly oblivious to the ethical question that forced him to resign in April from his briefly held position as interim executive director of the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition. The coalition had sought to insulate Mr. McGary from a possible conflict of interest over his $50,000 salary by using private donations to pay him. But that did not negate the questionable circumstance of a city official receiving a salary from an agency partially funded by the city and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Mr. McGary, and his backers, failed to consider the fact that money is fungible: Funding to the agency, whether public or private, ultimately merges and is indistinguishable in its use, regardless of how it is appropriated and earmarked.
Mr. McGary must learn that as a member of the City Council, he is constricted by conflict-of-interest rules and lives in the glass house of public scrutiny. If he’s not certain that his private and professional interests are free of inappropriate conflicts, he should check first with the city attorney.