The new DeKalb County Board of Ethics is considering whether to restrict public access to complaints filed against elected officials and government employees.
Written allegations of unethical government behavior were previously released upon request under Georgia's Open Records Act, but DeKalb Ethics Officer Stacey Kalberman said during a board meeting last week she doesn't believe their disclosure is required.
"Ethics boards get used as political tools, and until you've had a chance to actually review the complaint, you are subjecting the respondents to a lot of supposition and conjecture," Kalberman told the board Thursday. "We should have the right to investigate something to determine whether it has merit."
An attorney for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Lesli Gaither, said ethics complaints are similar to initial police incident reports, which are public records under state law.
"The public needs a fair, basic understanding of what's being investigated," Gaither told the board during its public comment period. "The hallmark of the Ethics Board is to increase transparency, increase accountability and honesty. To reverse the procedure and make the complaints confidential would be counter to that and contrary to the open records law."
Voters overwhelmingly approved a restructuring of the DeKalb Board of Ethics in November, replacing its members and adding the county's first full-time ethics officer.
The board plans to decide whether to disclose ethics complaints at its meeting in May, and Kalberman has asked the Georgia Attorney General's Office for a legal opinion.
“I want us to be deliberative about this. Whatever we do will establish a precedent,” said DeKalb Board of Ethics Chairman Larry Schall.
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