D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray missed a legal deadline on Wednesday to name his appointees to the city’s new Board of Ethics and Government Accountability, the panel created in the wake of the corruption probes that have enveloped the municipal government.
Under the law establishing the board, which will probe allegations of unethical conduct in District government and craft ethics guidelines for city employees, Gray was to select the panel’s inaugural three members by March 14 — 45 days after the law went into force. But that date came and went without nominees, all of whom the D.C. Council will have to approve.
“We [are] continuing to vet and review candidates and expect to release our nominations shortly,” Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro told The Washington Examiner in an email Wednesday.
Ward 4 Councilwoman Muriel Bowser, who authored the legislation creating the panel, did not respond to a request for comment.
On March 7, Gray made his first public effort to solicit prospective board members and invited D.C. residents to apply.
“A strong ethics board is a foundation of good government and essential to ensuring public confidence,” Gray said then. “I’m asking eligible, committed, civic-minded residents to consider applying.”
Asked that day whether he would meet the law’s deadline, Gray replied, “Hope so.”
In an interview Wednesday, Ribeiro said the public announcement was “supplemental and complementary” to prior internal deliberations.
He also said
the 45-day period the law granted was too short of a time frame for Gray to select qualified nominees.
“Forty-five days is a very short window to find people who are experts in those particular fields,” Ribeiro said.
Since taking office in 2011, Gray hasn’t filled more than 700 seats
on the city’s 175 boards and commissions. A recent Examiner analysis found that 27 of those panels have no members at all or are exclusively made up of people whose terms have expired.
Administration officials have defended Gray’s nominations process, saying he inherited a large number of vacancies from former Mayor Adrian Fenty.
