Tallahassee’s brand new ethics board is made up of five members appointed by local leaders. Those appointees are directed to choose two more. But with just four of the five members chosen, the group is coming up short on how to make it to seven.
The City Commission, a state prosecutor, and the presidents of FSU and FAMU have all tapped people to sit on the Tallahasee Ethics Board. But the chief judge for the second judicial circuit has declined to make an appointment. Commission appointee Lila Jaber says the board could easily choose an extra member—the hard part is determining if it has the authority to do so.
“I mean we could go down a road,” Jaber says, “where we say, we’ve got an application process out there, it’s easy enough to pick three people instead of two people, but then maybe we’ve overstepped.”
In the meantime, the board is planning to start taking applications for the two seats the referendum directs them to select.
