If the city of Spokane’s director of public works can join a private engineering firm and immediately direct its contract work with the city, then what’s the point of adopting a new ethics ordinance and forming a commission, as the city did in January?

In fact, this case seems tailor-made for such a commission.

Roger Flint has announced that he is leaving the city to join CH2M Hill, which has held more than $8 million worth of contracts with the city. Flint was the city’s watchdog on some of those jobs.

Flint says he doesn’t believe the city’s ethics ordinance prevents him from jumping the fence and getting to work. His job will include management of municipal contract work.

However, the ordinance is straightforward on the matter: “No former officer or employee shall, within a period of one year after leaving city office or employment, participate in matters involving the city if, while in the course of employment with the city, the former officer or employee was officially involved in the matter, or personally and substantially participated in the matter, or acted in the matter.”

Flint maintains that the one-year prohibition doesn’t apply to him. But, as a Spokesman-Review article from January states, “Spokane’s ethics law will govern the conduct of the mayor, City Council, appointed members of boards and commissions and about three dozen top city employees who are not covered by collective bargaining union contracts.”

Mayor Dennis Hession has kicked the issue over to the city attorney, but that’s missing the point. This isn’t a legal matter; it’s an ethical one. Thus, it ought to be submitted to the Ethics Commission, which was established in January after city voters booted a mayor over ethical misconduct. Plus, a finding by the city attorney that Flint is exempt would call into question the value of the ordinance.

It just shouldn’t be the case that a top city official can oversee private contractors one day and then work for that contractor the next. Flint supporters can say that he is an upstanding employee of strong character. He may very well be, but that also misses the point. If city officials can view private contractors as future employers, that can have an effect on decision-making. The point of an ethics ordinance is to avoid such conflicts of interest.

A salient example is the unraveling of the Air Force tanker-lease deal with Boeing. The Air Force procurement officer, Darlene Druyun, was negotiating a job offer from Boeing while overseeing the bidding process. In the end, she had procured jobs at Boeing for herself, her daughter and future son-in-law, while tipping the scales in favor of her future employer. That bit of corruption has jeopardized a deal that is very important to Fairchild Air Force Base and this region.

An immediate ethics inquiry into the Flint matter isn’t possible, because the city has been slow to select members of the Ethics Commission. It needs to get moving on that, because that’s the body that should decide this case. In the meantime, the city should ask CH2M Hill to provide a different liaison for city contracts.