Please review the Case Study "Robin Hood or Public Service Blackmailer" and answer the five questions in detail within "Some tough calls?" 1-5.

Book.

Lewis, C. W., Gilman, S. C. (12). The Ethics Challenge in Public Service: A Problem-Solving Guide, 3rd Edition.

Case Study"Robin Hood or Public Service Blackmailer" on page 221

Case: "Robin Hood or Public Service Blackmailer"

Prince George's County, Maryland, adjacent to Washington, D.C., is considered a solidly middle-class county. Its workforce is well educated, and the primary employer is the federal government. It has also been plagued by corruption scandals. In 2010, its county executive and his wife, a member of the county council, were arrested for corruption after a lengthy federal investigation.

In this context, the behavior of Thomas E. Dernoga, a former Prince George's councilman, raised a statewide ethics question. He liked to jokingly refer to himself as Robin Hood. He said the track at High Point High School was resurfaced with $125,000 he got from a couple of developers, and the bookshelves at the Deerfield Elementary School library were restocked with $20,000 he got from another. The contributions to various groupstotaling about $1 million during his eight years in officewere Dernoga's way of getting developers to help improve the communities where they did business.

But his behavior prompted Maryland legislators to pass an ethics bill in 2011 that bans any council member in the state from asking anyone who is seeking legislation or approvals to provide anything of monetary value to that county. The ethics legislation, which was signed into law in 2011, also bans county-issued credit cards for council members and prohibits elected officials from soliciting builders to hire someone who is connected to the officials.

Developers complained that the solicitations came in private requests from members of the council and that their projects were delayed if they raised questions. If they did not play the game, they would suffer. An attorney for other developers said his clients often felt pressured.

Dernoga, who left office in November 2010, said he never held up a project because a developer had declined his requests for a donation. Basically Dernoga told developers that if they did not want to contribute, he was not going to hold it against their project, He would treat their project proposal fairly but said, "Don't come look to me for favors."

Dernoga believed that most people want a favor from local politicians. They want more density. They want more parking. They all want something. Developers, he argued, seem to think that they are entitled. A developer who wants the county to do him or her a favor that might be good for the county is also going to make a lot of money as a result. Where is the harm in asking developers to help with the needs of the local community?

Dernoga believes he never crossed any ethical or legal boundaries and never used the money for himself. He never said they had to make a donation, but asked only whether they would consider one. As a result, he keeps coming back to the same conclusion: the only reason for complaints is that developers are not used to contributing to the public good.

Moments before the Prince George's council was to vote in 2007 on a site plan for a project, an affected property owner claimed that Dernoga had pulled him and three others into a hallway. The property owner said that Dernoga told them that the measure would not pass that day unless the group gave $200,000 for county schools. This property owner was outraged that he was told this so directly. Dernoga said during a recent interview that he had asked for $100,000 and was not holding the site plan hostage. He said he had asked for the donation from the developers before the plans were even filed.

Dernoga moved forward with approval of the site plan but told the builders that he would revisit the issue of the donation before the project received the tax credit it needed. The developers did not make the donation.

"You have these people making millions, and all this density and all the traffic [we'd] absorb... You mean to tell me you have nothing to help out our schools?" Dernoga said. "I found it greedy on the part of the property owners." Dernoga said that the project would have cost the main developers $120 million and that $100,000 would have been a "drop in the bucket" (Wiggins, 2011).

Dernoga regularly presented checks at back-to-school nights and other programs in his district. Community and school leaders have called the donations "Dernoga money." Dernoga said he had no fixed criteria about who got the funds. He met with PTA and school leaders, volunteer fire units, and other groups to find out what they needed. The principal at an arts-oriented county elementary school that served a number of at-risk students used the developer's donation to sponsor field trips and bring local artists to the school.

Other experts on land use issues believe that developer agreements or community benefit agreements are better ways to achieve what Dernoga wanted. The Maryland ethics bill does make an exception by allowing developers to give contributions if the money is brought up during a public hearing and deals with adequate public facilities or community benefit requirements. These kinds of agreements are transparent and get the community involved. The commitment by the developer can be legally binding to ensure that the community gets what it was promised.

Questions; Some Tough Calls

1. Most ethics codes prohibit public servants from using their public office for private gain. Is there private gain here? How do you define private gain?

2. Should elected officials be held to the same standards as professional managers?

3. Dernoga's method of distributing money was to identify needs and then use contributions to pay for them. Does this present an ethical issue?

4. Why do you think professional administrators got caught up in Dernoga's approach?

5. Dernoga stated that he never held up a site plan. However, if developers refused to contribute to the public good they would get no special favors. Does this serve or undermine the public good?