Privatization Commission Defended.

• Author: Pignalberi, Marco A
• Position: Brief Article

In this column in our April 2000 issue I commented that work of the Legislature's Commission on Privatization and Delivery of Government Services suffered from, if not conflict of interest in fact, at least the perception of conflicts of interest because members serving on Commission subcommittees could conceivably have benefited from recommendations they made. Marco Pignalberi, Executive Director of the Commission, disagrees.

Pignalberi and Representative John Cowdery (R-17th Dist.), for whom he works, have been in public life for as many years as I have been, and we all know that when the public's work is to be done, even the perception of a conflict of interest is to be avoided at all cost. Unfortunately this practice was not observed when inviting citizen volunteers to serve on subcommittees. Pignalberi makes his point, but overlooks the fact that expert testimony could have been received from special interests by having them present to a subcommittee of impartial citizen volunteers. For example, one does not need to be a contractor to understand that eliminating the Construction Contractor Licensing Examiners may not be in the public interest. Surprisingly, Pignalberi does not deny that special interests participated as subcommittee members. Quote: Your editorial alleged that private citizens who served on the privatization commission subcommittees had conflicts of interest because they may have dealt with issues that concern ed their businesses. Unquote.

And as for citing First Amendment Rights, Pignalberi slips into red herring journalism. Finally, we support the concept of privatization and said so in our article. We still do, and hope that one misstep will not quash a worthy endeavor altogether. I hope you'll give it another try. Here is Pignalberi's response to our views.

Vern McCorkle, Publisher.

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