Councilman Tim Spies Files Ethics Charges Against Councilwoman Shanie Shields

12 January 2012

414 Virginia Avenue
Salisbury, MD 21801

Mr. Norman Lyster, Chairman
Salisbury Ethics Commission
125 North Division Street
Salisbury, MD 21801

Dear Chairman Lyster,
With this letter I do hereby express my wish to file an Ethics Complaint against Councilwoman Eugenie P. (Shanie) Shields regarding the following items of interest:

1)  On 26 April 2011, Councilwoman Shields voted for a zoning text amendment that directly and financially benefited her landlord.  At this city council meeting, even after considerable discussion, Shields did not volunteer to disclose to Council that she had a financial relationship with a person, her landlord, who would directly and financially benefit by her affirmative vote.  The discussion continued and it was not until another council member pointedly asked her if she would want to recuse herself from both the discussion and vote based on that relationship that she seemingly reluctantly stated that she had a financial connection to the landlord in question.  At that time she emphatically stated that she would not recuse herself, regardless of that then-acknowledged connection, and soon after voted for the amendment that did directly and financially favor her landlord, this even after it had been widely publicly revealed and extensively discussed that her landlord had represented to the city's building department a proposal for the use of a home he had constructed as a single family residence in a similarly zoned neighborhood, when indeed his plan for it, as clearly brought forward before the council, was a densely-occupied home for veterans.  Shields voted in favor of allowing this zoning change, which fully accommodated her landlord's desires as presented before council.

In this, I believe that Shields may have violated the Salisbury Ethics Code's conflict of interest1 section by not immediately and fully voluntarily disclosing her personal financial relationship with a man heavily financially involved in this matter of legislation before the council, and that she most certainly violated the Code by not recusing herself once that relationship was revealed in the council session.  In light of this, I strongly feel that Shields should be impelled to disclose all of the financial particulars of her relationship with her landlord so that the Commission, the council and the public can be fully informed as to whether or not she is or was the recipient of any sort of financial (i.e., unusually low rent, rent discounts, rent forgiveness, failure to pass down expenses, etc.) or other special considerations which might indicate a quid pro quo for her vote or votes.  I ask that the Commission be particularly and exhaustively thorough in its investigation of all of these elements.

2)  On 10 January 2012, Councilwoman Shields filed an Ethics Complaint against me, Councilman Tim Spies, which vehemently and emotionally asserted that I should not have voted on the charter amendment that put the city attorney under the control of the city council, and, further, that I should not vote on any landlord/tenant issues put before the council.  I believe that both of these assertions are specious, even foolish.  But by her doing so, I believe that Shields is attempting to obstruct me in my official capacity from voting on landlord/tenant issues in an effort to benefit both her landlord and herself.  She has said on many, many occasions that increased fees and penalties are passed down from landlords to tenants, a statement which is virtually indisputable, given the for-profit nature of residential rentals.  Shields is a tenant. The obstructing of legitimate government-related costs from being levied on landlords does directly and personally financially benefit Shields as a tenant, as those costs, in their absence, could not be passed on to her.
To show if Shields was financially affected by the most recently enacted city rental fee, and to satisfy a full query by the Commission, Shields should have to disclose incontrovertible proof of the dollar amounts of her rent payments to her landlord for at least a period of months before and after the most recent fee legislation was enacted and the city in receipt of payment of the new rental fee(s) from the landlord related to her residence at 621 Germania Circle. If her rent was not raised within a reasonable time to accommodate the landlord's increased overhead in this instance, it would indicate that the landlord was extending special financial treatment to her, should those accommodations not have been extended to all tenants of the landlord in question.  If the fees were passed on to her, then she, as a tenant in a position of city legislative authority, stands to financially benefit from opposing fees with her council votes.  There appears to me to be no either-or.   To fully validate the reality of pass-down of rental fees to tenants, the Commission should be prepared to exhaustively examine all of the rental receipts for a similar, if not an identical period for all of this landlord's residential tenants, keeping in mind the effective dates of increased fees received by the city as dictated by city ordinance.

3)  I believe that Councilwoman Shields should not have voted on any landlord or tenant issue , and that she should not be allowed to vote on any landlord or tenant issue in the future because of her financial relationship with her landlord, a landlord whose business of renting to her and others is regulated by the city; and because I believe her landlord may be an active member of a commonly locally recognized landlord association that, by very widely varied means, unremittingly and very aggressively lobbies the city council and other interested entities, purportedly on the behalf of landlords city-wide on landlord/tenant issues.  He, Shields' own landlord, not long ago spoke on the record at a public input session in strong opposition to some of the very legislation that would directly financially affect his business, to which Shields directly pays her rent.  Shields is on public record as saying that she did not want to even consider the proposed legislation.  Further, Shields is noted, again on public record, on many occasions, as having said that landlords pass their fees on to tenants.  Has her landlord consistently done so with her?  This remains to be seen.

Based on the above information, which is true to the best of my knowledge and recollection, I ask that these issues be stringently addressed at a hearing of the Ethics Commission, at which I would like to provide additional supporting evidence, and at which I would like Shields to disclose her finances as they relate, as described above, to renting from her landlord so that the Commission, council and the public will know with certainty whether or not she, as a member of the Salisbury City Council, has voted in a manner that may have financially benefited her landlord and/or herself as a renter in the City of Salisbury.  

I would ask that the Commission, with respect paid to my rights as a complainant,  inform me of its intended meeting date not fewer than two weeks before that date, so that I might be afforded an appropriate amount of time to prepare my case regarding Ms. Shields,   including  the gathering of documentation and recordings germane to the complaint.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Most sincerely,

Timothy K. Spies, BSN, RN
HMCM (CMDMC), USN, Retired
Councilman, City of Salisbury

1 CHAPTER 2.04 - ETHICS
2.04.030 Conflicts of Interest.
            Except where such interest is disclosed and does not create a conflict of interest, officials and employees who are subject to this chapter shall not:

            A. Participate on behalf of the city in its decision-making process on any matter which would, to their knowledge, have a direct financial impact, as distinguished from an indirect financial impact, which would be experienced by members of the public generally, on them, their spouse or lineal descendant, parent, grandparent, siblings, or a business entity with which they are affiliated.