Policy 3

Develop programs that foster personal integrity and ethical behavior by all elected officials and public employees.

We live in a world where politicians, government officials and the media are allowed to spin every fact and issue into a mindless series of half-truths. News anchors snip every response into 10-second sound bites and promote discussions that degrade into a debate with the intellectual content of vocal 5-year-olds. Sadly, it is increasingly harder to find examples of personal integrity and honesty within the core of government institutions. While our founding fathers were careful to include safeguards, greedy and self-serving bureaucrats can easily overwhelm or simply ignore those safe-guards.

Often the authority and armed might of government is actually drafted as a necessary accomplice in unethical behavior. History is full of examples such as: the federal government side-stepping common law with a series of treaties that effectively stole land from Native Americans; state and local government creating voting laws that withheld voting rights and political power from African Americans; or Joseph McCarthy's self-promoting attacks on innocent private citizens. Whenever elected officials adopt regulations driven by special interests, judges ignore basic individual rights or ethics boards blindly fail to acknowledge and correct unethical behavior, it is a signal to the unethical that they are free to do as they please. Local and regional bureaucracies established with unlimited power and individual staff members shielded from the consequences of their actions become nothing less than powerful thugs.

There certainly are specific individuals that should be commended for the fine, ethical job they do. But the very structure and culture of many agencies, like King County’s Department of Development and Environmental Services (DDES) where CAPR started, are corrupt. They do not foster an honest discussion of issues. They hear but do not listen. They use any science that supports them and ignore the rest. They do not benefit from efficient review of permits so tend to drag out the process. And they certainly do not recognize a citizen’s right to free speech and individual property rights. Instead they are all about overbearing command and control and using fees and fines to keep the coffers full to pay themselves.

Much like Joseph McCarthy and his committee, they gain power with misleading statements, misuse of terms and the fear generated from predatory attacks on innocent property owners. In rural King County, the phrase "this individual appears to be a card carrying member of the communist party" has been replaced with "in the vicinity of a Class II wetland" or "a determination has been made that you have altered a Class II wetland". Like McCarthy's communists, DDES wetland designations have absolutely nothing in common with the general public's image of a wetland and often are little more than outright lies.

Law enforcement organizations have long realized that potential officers must be carefully screened and supervised. But, at DDES, individual inspectors are free to manipulate and humiliate private citizens with carefully crafted actions such as mailing letters full of misleading and false statements, refusing to correct items in writing, ignoring registered letters and padding billable time with "travel time".

Joseph McCarthy was exposed only after the general public was able to see the unedited footage of the hearings. Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights will work hard to expose the transgressors while encouraging those public servants that do their job ethically.