Symposium focuses on ethics of leadership

Symposium focuses on ethics of leadership

"The Ethics of Leadership" were presented at an October 18 symposium by the League of Women Voters at the Seymour Library.

Patricia Pawlaczyk and Bob Canham, both of the town of Sweden, had a hand in making the meeting a reality. "We wanted to tap into the experts in the area of ethics and have them come and speak at a meeting," Canham said. Both individuals agreed that the meeting was an important one in light of the elections and because a couple of individuals from the Town of Sweden board didn't want to form an ethics board for Sweden, they said. "Bob and I asked (at a March meeting) the board members to establish an ethics board, but they refused."

Presenting at the meeting were Dr. Randall Curren, who discussed ethics of leadership from its roots in Greece, as written by Aristotle, to its usage today. Four ethics board members from three towns and one village in Monroe County (Irondequoit, Perinton, Riga and Honeoye Falls) spoke of the process their boards used to work through internal and external complaints or questions.

"The voting public is entitled to a system that provides the means to report and obtain remedy of unethical irregularities of public employees in carrying out their day-to-day activities on behalf of their constituents," Canham said. "That system is 13 of 19 of the towns in Monroe County is directed by ethics boards that report to their governing bodies."

Pawlaczyk said that several "interesting pieces of information" surfaced during the ethics presentation at the library. "During the question and answer segment, an audience member asked if the panel thought an ethics board was important for government. Panel members agreed unanimously because it generates confidence from the electorate that their leaders are acting in an ethical manner and an ethics board provides politicians a source of information ensuring that they might inadvertently do something that was unethical," she said.