A new Palm Beach County Ethics Commission, created by county commissioners last year in response to the corruption convictions of five local elected officials between 2006 and 2009, holds its first meeting Tuesday in West Palm Beach.

Among the first orders of business for the five-member commission will be choosing a chairman and vice-chairman.

The ethics panel, plus representatives from the State Attorney and Public Defender offices, will sit as the selection committee for a new inspector general position. The inspector general post, modeled after one in Miami-Dade County, is the centerpiece of reforms approved Dec. 1. Applications for the inspector general’s job and for a new executive director for the ethics commission are due Friday.

The ethics panelists were chosen by a variety of groups outside county government. Read about them after the jump…..

(more…)

The Palm Beach County League of Cities today picked retired Circuit Judge and former Riviera Beach councilman Edward Rodgers to fill the seat set aside for a former elected official on the new county Ethics Commission.

Rodgers was one of eight former elected officials vying for the spot.

The five-member ethics panel was created by county commissioners last year in response to scandals that sent five local elected official to federal prison between 2006 and 2009. Each of the seats is to be filled by a different organization. In addition to the League of Cities’ choice of Rodgers, county police chiefs picked former federal prosecutor Bruce Reinhart for one seat and the president of Florida Atlantic University picked FAU ethics professor Robin Fiore for another.

The two remaining seats will be filled by the county chapter of the Florida Institute of CPAs and by a coalition of minority lawyer groups.