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Krassner ran through a variety of possible solutions, including an ethics commission or an ethics officer position that is completely independent of local government. "If you can get to the most independent level of hiring and firing and the most protected pool of funding, that combination is really the best practice," he said. County Commissioner Nora Patterson emphasized that the county's ethics officer position wasn't eliminated — Uebelacker was replaced by Steve Olmstead — and that Rushing's office is pursuing the new inspector general accreditation. Council of Neighborhood Associations Vice President Cathy Antunes, who hosted Monday's meeting, tells the News Leader the inspector general accreditation doesn't give her more confidence in county government. She and local activist Pat Rounds met with Rushing years ago to bring up problems they saw in Rushing's audit of the baseball sta- dium contract process. Antunes says some of Rushing's justifications for her office's actions were "cockamamie." "Her audit said everything was fine and it absolutely wasn't," Antunes adds. "Having looked at a lot of the same informa- tion as the county clerk, my assessment as to whether there were violations or not was very different from theirs," says Rounds, who declined to speak more on the record. Another reason Antunes doesn't feel the inspector general will have much impact: the lack of public engagement. "There's been no public process around this inspector gen- eral," Antunes says. "There's been no public hearing, no actual engaging of the public." True enough, Rushing concedes, which is why she's planning to deliver an update on the inspector general process to the County Commission next Tuesday. She says there's been a lot of "miscommunication" about the accreditation and what authority it does and doesn't convey. Even the I.G. will still face limitations on what she can investigate. She won't be looking into voting conflicts of inter- est, for example. Allegations along those lines will be forwarded to the county administra- tion or the state ethics commission. After speaking to the commission next week, Rushing is planning additional public out- reach to explain more about the I.G. and her office's audit process. "I understand how frus- trated people are." % Someone you know needs Planned Parenthood • Lifesaving cancer screenings • Parent & teen education • Annual GYN exams • Birth control Planned Parenthood Of Southwest And Central Florida • Sarasota 941-953-4060 • MyPlannedParenthood.org Sarasota News Leader May 16, 2014 Page 25