Mayor seeks ethics board advice on her travel

Atlanta officials have requested a clarification of city ethics policies regarding Mayor Shirley Franklin’s frequent traveling. The clarification request follows this week’s disclosure in my Metropolis column that Franklin frequently takes free travel and lodging from groups other than the city without filing disclosures apparently mandated by the city ethics code.

The city’s ethics board discussed the issue Sept. 27, but made no determination. Then, Franklin sent a blistering letter to us accusing me of being “a bully.”

As CL reported, city officials and employees are banned from taking trips and lodging from groups deemed “prohibited” under the ethics code. The mayor has claimed that the code is ambiguous, and has failed to file a single disclosure of gifts involving trips she has taken in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

The code, however, doesn’t appear to be ambiguous on key points. Among the items that qualify a group as “prohibited” is employing “registered lobbyists.” The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, which has five registered lobbyists for local matters, has paid for Franklin trips, including one earlier this year to several Asian nations. There are no exceptions in the city code that would have allowed Franklin to avoid disclosing the gifts from the chamber — indeed, the city’s ethics board has declared another business association, Central Atlanta Progress, “prohibited.” In an e-mail, Franklin stated that “no” prohibited source has ever paid for a trip. Franklin now claims “ambiguity” clouds the issue of what groups are “prohibited.”

Franklin ripped off an e-mail responding to CL’s report on her travel records.

Here’s the mayor’s return salvo: