OPINION: Unethics panel?

If citizens of Colorado Springs will ever be inclined to surrender more control of their own money, rendering it to City Hall with higher taxes, city government will have to earn their trust. Earning trust might begin with maintaining ethics on the city's ethics panel.

Heading our city government is Mayor Lionel Rivera, a man who's the subject of an ethics investigation. At this juncture, the public has no reason to conclude Rivera has done anything wrong. He has a long history in Colorado Springs as an upstanding, law-abiding citizen and public servant.

But Rivera has been accused of inappropriate business ties with LandCo Equity Partners, which was chosen over three other developers to head the defunct $53 million deal the city made with the U.S. Olympic Committee last year for a new downtown headquarters.

Accusations against public officials are cheap and easy to make. As a matter of course, however, the accusation against Rivera has led to an investigation by the city's ethics committee. All citizens of Colorado Springs should hope the committee can clear Rivera with honest findings so business can go forth.

If Rivera is cleared under current circumstances, however, it won't mean a thing. Clouds of suspicion will linger, darkening the relationship between city leaders and the folks they are supposed to serve. That's because one of three members of the Colorado Springs Independent Ethics Commission, reviewing the complaint, is a longtime political ally of the mayor. It sounds like a joke, but it's not.

Jan Doran actively campaigned for Rivera's unsuccessful congressional campaign in 2006. She campaigned again for him when he ran for re-election as mayor in 2007, and she served on his re-election campaign committee.

Doran thinks it's of little concern, because her close ties with the mayor are a matter of public record. She also argues that she disclosed the conflict of interest to City Attorney Patricia Kelly, who told Doran she did not have to recuse herself from the committee's investigation of the mayor. Doran said Kelly told her the close political ties with Rivera "did not compromise my position."

Are these people on some other planet, or are city officials in the business of openly disrespecting the public? If Kelly advised Doran to stay on the committee, it only calls into question Kelly's interest in a fair and objective fact-finding process. It's difficult to believe a woman who worked in an official capacity to elect a politician could objectively determine whether allegations against him are true or false. Even if Doran achieves sincere objectivity, nobody will ever believe it. How could they?

Doran's comments to Gazette reporter Daniel Chacón were nothing short of bizarre.

Chacón asked her about the appearance of bias, and she said the question was unfair.

"The Gazette makes constant appearances of being biased in one way or another," Doran said.

Fair enough. The Gazette's opinion pages are an intentionally biased vehicle for the defense of the newspaper's Freedom Philosophy. The news pages, like a good jury, strive to achieve objectivity. Regardless, The Gazette isn't a government ethics panel. And The Gazette, like almost any other newspaper, would never assign a reporter to investigate a politician whom the reporter had worked to elect.

Chantell Taylor, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, said she was "stunned" that one of Rivera's own former campaign officials was investigating him. A more blatant defense of inside ball would be hard to find.

Jan Doran, if you care about Mayor Rivera and Colorado Springs - and your years of service to the community indicate you do - you'll recuse yourself from this investigation immediately. Going forward will remove whatever semblance of credibility the mayor and City Hall have left with the citizens of Colorado Springs. You, Mayor Rivera, and our city can't possibly win if you're on that committee when its findings are released, hopefully clearing the mayor of all wrongdoing.