A Times Editorial

Revisiting gift rules could restore trust

Though some other city officials might not appreciate it, new Dunedin City Commissioner Bob Hackworth is raising again the issue of the city's policy on accepting gifts.

That's okay. Still lurking in some corners of Dunedin city government are officials who don't understand why the city needed tougher rules about accepting gifts in the first place.

Hackworth isn't one of them. A virtual unknown just weeks before the February election, Hackworth beat longtime Dunedin politician Cecil Englebert, in large measure because voters were upset with Englebert and the city's position on taking gifts from the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team.

For many years city officials accepted gifts and free hotel rooms from the Blue Jays and the city of Toronto. The gifts included jewelry, meals and baseball tickets.

Revelations about those gifts, combined with public anger about extravagant touches to the new facilities the city was building for the Blue Jays, led to a groundswell of support for Hackworth.

Even before Election Day, the City Commission had toughened the lax gift policy. Given the options of a policy that forbade accepting any gifts at all, or one that just banned accepting gifts from entities doing business with the city, a majority of the City Commission chose the later. Hackworth believed that new policy still did not go far enough (for example, it still allowed the freebies from the city of Toronto), and many residents apparently agreed.

At Thursday's City Commission meeting, Hackworth is scheduled to present a modified policy for the commission's consideration. There is no ambiguity to the new wording: "Dunedin officials shall not accept gifts, gratuities or loans." Period.

Hackworth also is recommending that the commission strike a paragraph in the current policy that forbids acceptance of Blue Jays baseball tickets for free, but allows the city to purchase tickets for distribution to city officials or other people.

It isn't that Hackworth is opposed to city officials attending some baseball games with city-purchased tickets. It is just that other portions of the gift policy -- portions he supports -- permit use of public funds to admit city officials to events that "promote the cultural, historic or economic life of the city" if there is a public purpose to be served by their attendance. Hackworth wants that public purpose standard applied to baseball games just as it is to all other events.

Other commissioners should support Hackworth's changes, and may even want to suggest other ways to clarify the city's position on gifts. Is all this much ado about nothing? Some officials may think so. But Dunedin will have to work hard to win back the trust of disaffected residents. This is a step in the right direction.

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