RA Board Kills Ethics Committee, Reston Patch, January 25, 2015

Proposal for semi-automonous Ethics Committee growing out of land swap controversy dies. Board member goes active against RELAC referendum.

By John Lovaas (Open Post) January 25, 2015 at 1:50pm

The Reston Association Board of Directors recently killed a proposal by Director Rachel Muir to create a semi-autonomous Ethics Committee to serve as watchdog of the ethically challenged Board.

Muir’s proposed Committee would consist of 4 members from the community and one representative from the RA Board. The Committee would have overseen implementation of a new, more rigorous code of conduct for RA Board members. It would have had the power to investigate allegations of violations from the community, publicly report their findings, and recommend appropriate action to the full Board. The Board rejected the proposal by a 6-2 vote, with only Ms. Muir and Director Lucinda Shannon voting in favor of it.

There has been talk of ethics reform following last year’s controversy about RA’s secretive land swap of a wooded common area to become a parking lot for the exclusive use of Lake Anne business; and, subsequent revelations that some RA Directors fail to complete even the minimal conflict-of-interest forms currently required by the Association.

Instead, the same Board majority voted to officially assigned ethics oversight responsibility to a newly created Governance Committee, consisting of Board members themselves. That is, the fox is in charge of the chicken coop.

Now, just after helping to kill the ethics reform, one of those who voted to kill it is actively taking a side in the RA referendum to determine whether or not to eliminate the RA covenant binding 343 Lake Anne homes to the Reston Lake Anne Air Conditioning (RELAC) system monopoly. . . .

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