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Editorial: Commission acted with blind abandon

July 29, 2010

He should never have asked. She should never have responded. It’s as simple as that.

Both City Manager Paul Stansbury and Danville City Commissioner Janet Hamner — experienced as they are in city business and in political fallout — should have known that to ask for or to offer a quote from Cottage Interiors, Hamner’s private interior design business, would raise eyebrows regarding any city purchase.

And they’re not alone in their should-have-knowns. On July 12, the rest of the commission approved the payment of more than $3,600 to Hamner’s business for blinds hung in the new city hall. Their acceptance of this transaction exhibits one of three things — incredible naivety, mildly sinister motives or an uncanny collective oversight — none of which are good choices if you are looking for an explanation.

Mayor Hugh Coomer, no stranger to ethics violations he, was correct to make an issue of this. Coomer was found guilty early in his term of office on three ethics charges, none of which translates into something as clearly problematic to the average voter as this one might. On its face, based on the sections of the ethics code Coomer cites, this was a violation. Admirably, we understand Hamner will ask the Ethics Committee to conduct an investigation. The committee may not agree either with Coomer or with us.

But there are ethics, and then there are ethics. Some actions considered unethical might violate written rules. Others may not. Perception, however, often is reality, regardless the outcome of some investigation or hearing.

Hamner has said she did what she was asked and that her business did not profit from the sale. We’ll take her at her word. During her tenure as a commissioner, she has provided no reason for us to think otherwise.

But there is profit, and then there is profit.

It could be argued that she profited from the fact that her competitors did not. And that begs the question: What would her quote have been had she not been a commissioner? That’s the question her competitors undoubtedly are asking, too, but we’ll never know.

Stansbury said he asked three local interior design businesses for quotes on the blinds. Hamner’s was the lowest. Perhaps she quoted them at cost, or below cost. That would be admirable, too, if not for the fact that in her position she had intimate knowledge of the project, was heavily involved in choosing the decor, and probably had the best idea of what the city could or would pay for such items. She would not have needed to know what others were quoting — and we’re confident she didn’t — to have a better shot at submitting the lowest. That would constitute a matter of fairness lost.

What makes this worse is that Stansbury and the commission appear to have hoped it would just slide through without notice. When Hamner appropriately abstained from the vote to approve the bills, no commissioner asked why, which suggests that they already knew. To be fair, we should have asked, too. Coomer might have, but wasn’t in attendance. It’s not clear whether he had raised the issue prior to the meeting, or chose to wait until after a vote on the bills, perhaps for some political reason. But it really doesn’t matter.

At the very least, a public discussion among the commission members was in order before the vote. It didn’t happen. And now there is understandable fallout.

What were they thinking?

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