EDITOR'S NOTE: The first public forum with the Citizens’ Commission for Best Practices in Government for questions and discussion will be Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the El Paso Community College Administrative Services Building, 9050 Viscount, in the Boardroom.

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The Citizens’ Commission for Best Practices in Government thinks establishing a county ethics commission would be one of the best things county government could do right now and intends to endorse it today.

El Paso County Commissioners Court is conducting a special meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday to consider creating a commission, sending it to the voters or doing nothing with the bill the Texas Legislature approved this spring expressly for the El Paso.

“We don’t think doing nothing is a very good option,” said Enrique Moreno, chairman of the citizens’ commission that went public last week. “That leaves two options: Commissioners Court passing it through their vote or passing it to the voters.

“That will be debated, and there are merits on both sides of the issue. We’d be supportive of moving forward as soon as possible.”

A panel of the citizens’ commission will be conducting its first meeting Wednesday to start a public discussion among El Pasoans about the on-going pubic corruption investigation and what could or should be done to address corruption in the community. The 13-member citizen's commission was organized by El Paso businessman Woody Hunt, lawyer Enrique Moreno and others has spent more than a year looking into this city’s public and private corruption problem.

Former El Paso County Judge Alicia Chacon said she hopes the public will take an interest in the commission she is a member of and the creation of a county ethics commission.

“I have been disappointed that there’s no outcry about what’s happening in El Paso,” Chacon said. “I’m hoping they will begin to show some community outrage over the situation and that citizens will truly get involved.”

She noted that there was a much larger community reaction over the May incident in which a group of gay men was ejected from Chicos’ Tacos than there has been over the indictments of and guilty pleas by El Paso business people, professionals and former public officials in the FBI’s continuing corruption investigation.

The citizens’ commission meeting will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the El Paso Community College Administrative Services Building, 9050 Viscount, in the Boardroom. (See Citizens Commission to take on public corruption)

Moreno is aware of some of the criticisms of the bill the Legislature approved. But the ethics commission would be the first of its kind in Texas, he said, and it’s inevitable that the law would have some imperfections.

“Personally, my sense on moving forward is the quicker we get moving the better,” he said. “You can analyze it and find fault in it, but if we say hold off until it’s perfect, we won’t move forward.”

Moreno was an original member of the ethics board that Commissioners Court established to administer a new county ethics code in 2004 – also the first of its kind in Texas.

“If we have learned something, it is that there are difficult choices. It is a process that evolves, not one you do once and get it perfect. It changes.”

As for red flags, he said there are a number of areas that need to be looked at, such as whether people could use the Texas Public Information Act to gain access to and copies of ethics complaints that are supposed to be confidential.

“Some issues haven’t been fully vetted,” Moreno said. “I would like the citizens’ commission to be involved with the county. We have some experience in looking at the process and would like to be at the table with the county.”

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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605, ext. 30, or 630-6622.