who's watching the henhouse?, no, who's on first

New Castle County's ethics soap opera continues. As seen in today's News Journal, the County is attempting to recreate their failed attempt at maintaining an Ethics Commision without correcting the problem that caused it to fail. In short, they either didn't want to adequately fund it or they didn't want it to have sufficient funds to operate effectively. You pick.

A token watchdog is worse than no watchdog at all, at least for our citizens. It would give us the false sense of security of thinking that someone is overseeing the ethics of our county government. So let us think about it. Who would be served by a token Ethics Commission, that is ineffective? The article in the News Journal said that the County Commissioners said that the constituents want to keep the Ethics issues local, rather than turning the process over to the State. Is this true? Are ethics better dealt with by an underfunded body under the direct control and pay of the people they are policing? Remember, time after time we have seen in the news how our county government has been misused and corrupted. Would the State oversight option not be cheaper and more nuetral? Yeah, I can see how we, the constituents opt out of the cheaper better plan and choose the ineffective and more expensive plan. That's just like us.