Every step on the road to a decision can hit an ethics pothole

He was just 18, proud and brave, when a Yankee laid him in his grave. I swear by the mud below my feet you can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat.

MARCH 4, 2010: Leaders of governments and institutions can generally survive the unpopular decisions they make as long as their decisions are made ethically.

That's why opponents always try to make hay about a leader's supposed lack of ethics. And it's also why our reporters ask a lot of questions about how decisions are made in the north country. We know that the smallest of ethical lapses can taint or even undo the largest of decisions.

Decisions on the proposed wind farm in Cape Vincent will forever be tainted, for instance, because some of the officials voting to bring wind towers to the town will financially benefit from their construction. Even if wind turbines are never built, acrimony over the process between supporters and opponents of wind farms will fester in Cape Vincent for years to come.

All the feuding in the towns of Henderson and Hounsfield can be traced to allegations of unethical behavior by politicians. Did a politician use his office to prevent some legal action from taking place against him? Is a former office holder behind the scenes trying to undermine current elected officials?

Once everyone's ethics are challenged, the truly quirky often follows. How quirky? In Henderson last year, a feud arose over where flower baskets were purchased, and in Hounsfield a tiff recently took place over where town employees take their coffee breaks.

(The fact that the generally non-quirky village of Dexter, which is in the town of Brownville, was the source of both complaints is purely coincidental).

Some parents in the General Brown School District don't care for Superintendent Stephan J. Vigliotti, Sr., and are scratching around trying to find something unethical regarding the district's turnover rate of administrators. That's led to a lot of vague comments about Vigliotti's management style and demeanor, which even his supporters admit can be abrasive.

Compare that vagueness to what specifically happened in the Carthage School District. Its former superintendent, Carl H. Militello, ignored law and logic and unilaterally over-extended benefits to a newly hired administrator. Last year other administrators demanded the same benefits, and the school board figured paying everyone off would be cheaper than a lawsuit.

Institutions can goof up, too. The Family Counseling Service of Northern New York recently botched the selection of its new executive director when its search committee hired Collene Alexander “effective Monday morning” Jan. 25, even though other board members were not aware she was being considered for the job.

After a Times reporter started asking about the selection process, Alexander was then told to start work on Tuesday Jan. 26 so the whole board could meet the night before to formally — and thus, ethically — approve her hiring.

(Speaking of ethics, the search committee was run by James Heary, who is also the attorney for the Jefferson County Industrial Development Authority. That means he is tight as a tick with Collene Alexander's husband, IDA Executive Director Donald Alexander. So while Heary and Alexander on Jan. 25-26 were consumed during the day with getting the county legislature to approve putting 84 wind turbines on Galloo Island, Heary was still able to pull off some nifty multi-tasking at night).

Most decisions made by leaders occur in private, which is impossible to prevent from happening. Who has the time, money and people to monitor every waking breath of every decision-maker, anyway? But leaders should always remind themselves that the path they took to make a decision will eventually be made public.

And that's where the best laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry.