Montgomery officials said Friday they would find a new way to finance County Executive Ike Leggett’s October trip to Israel, after word spread that the County Ethics Commission was opposed to leaders attending similar trips organized by a Jewish community group.
Jewish Community Relations Council leaders said county officials have been a regular presence on the roughly 20 trips sponsored by the organization over the past 25 years. The JCRC lobbies for county funding and does charity work, but trip participation had never been an issue until council members asked the ethics board to certify the trips did not violate county policy.
Council Member Roger Berliner said he and Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg had planned to go on a JCRC trip to Israel, and they had contacted the commission for guidance. Although no official ruling had been issued by Friday evening, an e-mail to Trachtenberg from the commission’s executive secretary earlier in the week said accepting travel arrangements from a lobbying group was unacceptable. Berliner said neither expected the group to come out against the trip.
“This is a trip that has been conducted for many years,” Berliner said. “I would have thought that had there been concerns regarding this trip that they would have surfaced years ago.”
Trachtenberg spokesman William Klein and Berliner said the council members were eager to participate since Montgomery County residents are very interested in Israeli affairs.
“This is an area that is very important to many members of the community that I represent,” Berliner said.
Ronald Halber, executive director of the JCRC, said Montgomery was the only county in the region that had decided it was not OK for elected officials to participate in its trips. County spokesman Patrick Lacefield said the county would determine other means to pay for Leggett’s October trip to ensure he could participate in the economic development venture.
“We’ll move ahead with our trip if we have to pay for it under other auspices we’ll work that out,” Lacefield said.
