As our current Board of Selectmen begins consideration of the creation of a Code of Ethics for all Town employees and officials, some in Goshen are experiencing a sense of déjà vu; a feeling they’ve seen this all before.

According to former Selectman John Krukar, who served on the Board of Selectmen when a previous campaign was started in 2007, a final document was produced in late 2008 and was presented to then-First Selectman Bob Valentine. He doesn’t know what happened to it from there. “I’d like to know myself”, he told The Goshen News. “I thought it had passed and got incorporated”. Only now does he realize that it hadn’t, as his search in the Town Ordinances came up empty.

Krukar said that the original effort was initiated as a result of a suggestion from the Northwest Connecticut Council of Elected Officials, a predecessor to the current Northwest Hills Council of Government (NHCOG). The Council reportedly provided sample documents from other towns that served as the template for the document eventually drafted for Goshen.

At the January 23^rd Board of Selectmen meeting, Goshen Democratic Town Committee Chair Henrietta Horvay provided further background on the previous Code of Ethics initiative. She talked about serving on a 3-person committee appointed by then-Selectmen Krukar, Valentine and Nodine, a committee consisting of Horvay, Ed Wright and Eric Chadwick. “We did present at the end of 2008/beginning of 2009, a Code of Ethics for the Town of Goshen, which was reviewed by the Town Attorney at the time,” she said. She also referenced a review by an attorney representing Town employees, who were unionized at that time.  The final draft that is “on file with the Town… was never presented beyond that.”

Selectman Scott Olson, who is currently championing the cause of adopting a Code of Ethics, asked Horvay for clarification. “My understanding is that the Code of Ethics that was drafted in 2008 and 2009 was eventually submitted as a final draft proposal to the Board of Selectmen, was given to the First Selectman at the time, and that’s where it sort of stopped. My understanding is that even though it was presented, there was never any action taken on it from there… Is that an accurate explanation of what happened to it and why it never went anywhere?”, he asked.

“As far as I know,” Horvay responded. She added that no return opinions from the reviewing attorneys had been shared with her committee. “But the Selectmen, they never presented it to the public, to a Town Meeting.”

“In fact, it was never taken up and voted on by the Board of Selectmen”, Olson responded, “which would have been the next natural progression of order that one would expect would have happened.” Both Olson and Horvay said they had searched the 2008-2009 Board of Selectmen meeting minutes and found no further reference to the draft code or any attorneys’ opinions.

The Goshen News reached out to former 1^st Selectman Valentine to ask what had happened to the draft Code of Ethics after it landed on his desk in 2009. In a series of emailed questions, the paper asked why the proposed code never proceeded to a Town vote. We also asked whether there was something he thought was problematic with the draft document or that it represented a final consensus. According to former Selectman Krukar, there had been several revisions produced, one of which was intended to address Mr. Valentine’s objections at the time, which Krukar believed were satisfied. The paper has yet to receive a reply from Mr. Valentine.

Krukar provided a total of 4 drafts to The Goshen News, including the final one. While they have not been reviewed by an attorney, most of the edits appear to be relatively minor in nature. The most noteworthy revisions included an early change from an Ethics Council of 5 members to a council of 3. A later, more significant change was made to make the Ethics Council a preliminary fact-finding body, rather than the final decision-makers regarding ethics violations. According to the final draft, the Ethics Council would be charged with determining whether there was probable cause to suspect an ethics violation had occurred, and if so, the case would be referred to a Regional Ethics Commission which would perform a review and make recommendations.

Why a Regional Ethics Commission? In the discussion of a potential new Code of Ethics at the January 23^rd Board of Selectmen’s meeting, Selectman Kinsella voiced the opinion that a Regional Ethics Commission would be necessary. He cited the fact that Goshen is a small town where everyone knows each other and that placing responsibility to adjudicate a complaint in the hands of a third party with no connection to Goshen was the only way to assure unbiased results. That appears to have been considered in the 2008 Committee’s final draft.

So what happened to the 2008 Code of Ethics, and why did it never progressed to a Town Meeting vote? Apparently only Mr. Valentine can tell us for certain, but to date, he has not responded to our inquiries.