Ethics complaints within Lake County’s government will now be heard by an independent commission despite one County Board member’s concern that four of its five members are Democrats.
During a discussion about the commission’s appointments at the board’s meeting Tuesday, District 3 board member Dick Barr brought up concerns about a political imbalance within the five new ethics commissioners. Barr, who is a Republican, said while he believes the candidates are qualified, he also thinks such an imbalance is a bad look.
“I wouldn’t even support that if it was four Republicans to one Democrat,” he said.
Barr turned out to be the only member opposed to the appointments at the meeting. All other 19 members present, including Barr’s fellow Republicans, supported the measure.
The five members appointed were Deborah Balma, a strategic sourcing manager for Allstate; Patrick “Sean” Ginty, an attorney and risk control director for CNA Insurance; Andrea Hess, an investigator; Helen Redding, a former bank executive and founder of a foundation centered around asthma; and Harold Wallin, a lawyer.
All five will serve on the county’s new ethics commission, which will be responsible for assessing complaints about elected or appointed officials and employees within the county’s government. An independent group, officials have said in the past that the goal in creating it has been to have a body that will keep politics out of assessing complaints.
District 10 board member Jessica Vealitzek, who is head of the county’s ethic committee responsible for recommending the members for the new panel, said it was a hard decision. In response to Barr, Vealitzek said none of the seven committee members — four Democrats and three Republicans — were aware of any applicant’s political affiliations.
“I don’t want to get too far into (Barr’s) accusations because it’s just nonsense,” she said.
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Other committee members backed her up, including District 17 board member Michael Danforth and District 19 board member Catherine Sbarra, who are both Republicans. Danforth said the committee specifically discussed wanting to avoid looking partisan. As a result, the committee, along with Lake County staff, opted not to look into any applicant’s politics, he said. Other committee members said that as well.
“We simply care about having a good, diverse group of people who are intelligent, respected in their field and come from a broad range of the Lake County community,” Danforth said. “And I think that’s exactly what we have.”
Barr clarified in another response that he had not accused the committee of “stacking the deck,” as one other member put it. Rather, he said he was just making an observation. But in his last remarks, he said that he believed the imbalance was intentional.
“Congratulations, because you hit the political lottery that you somehow got 80% (of the commission) to be Democrat,” he said.
One other critique made came from District 21 board member Ann Maine, who said she wasn’t a fan that elected officials, current or previous, could not apply. She said she felt their experience could be important.
Other members voiced support, such as District 6 board member John Wasik, who said the commission was something he thought the county had “long needed.”
“I think this is just a total landmark in government transparency,” he said.
The process dates back to April, when the ethics committee voted to create the independent commission. Staff and committee members spent the next couple of months looking over applications, of which there were more than 100.
Commissioners will serve a three-year term. The first appointees will have staggered terms, with three starting out with a two-year term and two with a three-year term. The commission will meet twice per year, or whenever is necessary to assess complaints, county documents show.