Mayor Mara Giulianti, after decades of being against any type of ethics in government at all, has finally seen the light. In her "Facets of the Diamond" column in the puffy South Florida Sun-Times the Hollywood honchess breaks the news that she is now recommending a new "Ethics Reform Program" for her city. She writes:
"Since the missteps and allegations of impropriety and/or illegal actions of some Hollywood employees have cast a terrible pall on our city, trust needs to be restored and methods put in place to assist in promoting high ethical standards."
Here, Giulianti fails to mention that it's not just "employees" -- aka four cops that wanted to become Mafiosi -- who have found themselves in trouble, it's also
officials. And she is one of them. For more, go to the Broward State Attorney's Office and read the file on former Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom. She's basically the equivalent of an unindicted co-conspirator in the case and is lucky she didn't post bail like her former chum, Wasserstrom. Moving on:
"Elected Officials and high-ranking appointed officials are also, of course, expected to maintain high ethical standards. We are required to submit written forms that give the names and addresses of campaign contributors and any gift or honorarium we have received. We attempt to show the public that we have 'nothing to hide.' This is often referred to as 'transparency.'"
You have to love the way Giulianti puts the terms "nothing to hide" and "transparency" in quotes -- they are obviously alien concepts to her. The kicker to this is that most of these self-imposted city rules have no teeth and most of what she's proposing is already covered in the state Ethics Code. And the mayor fails to remind her dear readers that the last time there was a push in the city to impose stricter rules on lobbying (led by Peter Bober in an attempt to scale down the immense power of Alan Koslow and Bernie Friedman of Becker & Poliakoff) she rallied the commission to vote it down by a 4-3 vote.
(Thanks to Asa Boynton for the heads-up).
