When is an ethics code effective? When it applies to a broad number of people and has an enforcement mechanism.

When is it ineffective? When those adopting and implementing it miss the whole point of the exercise and get defensive about its applications and implications.

The city of Spokane adopted an ethics ordinance on Jan. 17. Five months later, the city has yet to appoint a single member to the seven-member enforcement body and many key officials may be exempt.

The promise of the ethics ordinance began to unravel when Mayor Dennis Hession announced that it didn’t apply to Roger Flint, the public works director who took a job with an engineering firm that has city contracts. As it turns out, it may not apply to many other top personnel with employment contracts. This includes the deputy mayor, acting police chief, fire chief, chief financial officer, budget director, economic development director, human resources director, city attorney and independent auditor.

This contradicts the ethics ordinance, which states: “The Code of Ethics shall be applicable to all elected or appointed officers and exempt confidential employees.” (Union participation must be bargained at contract negotiations.)

To resolve the conflict, Hession turned to the city attorney’s office, which ruled that officials with personal contracts that predate the ethics ordinance are exempt unless their contracts specify otherwise. Apparently, these contracts don’t have language that binds workers to all city ordinances regardless of the date of adoption.

The Spokesman-Review tried to learn more about the rationale and legal basis for this decision, but, incredibly, the city is designating the opinion “an attorney work product” and thus won’t release it. That’s right, the city believes that the public doesn’t have a right to know what a publicly funded attorney told a public official about a public policy matter.

It wouldn’t be illegal to release the opinion, but the mayor, as a matter of city policy that is consistently contemptuous of the intent of a citizen-adopted public records law, thinks it best to keep such things a secret. Not good enough for you? Then file a lawsuit, and they’ll defend themselves with your money.

In his May 11 announcement on the Flint matter, the mayor chastised those who raised ethical concerns. Others chimed in defensively. But what good is an ethics code if questions can’t be asked?

Reactions like that were forewarned by Wayne Barnett, the executive director of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, who visited Spokane last fall to lend his expertise. He said at the time, “A drive to establish an Ethics Commission should not be viewed as an affront to existing officeholders.”

As long as standards of conduct and behavior are broadly applied, there is no reason to take them personally. When organizations began drug testing employees, they weren’t passing judgment on everyone handed a cup. The same rationale applies to an ethics code.

The mayor can support the code by abiding by its intent, selecting members to serve on the independent commission, pushing for union participation and bringing his at-will workers under the ordinance as soon as possible.