DP2

DecisionPoint
http://proethica.org/ontology/cases#DecisionPoint

DP2

Should WXY Engineers accept appointment as city engineer for City H while holding three active design contracts with the city, relying on disclosure and the absence of private client work as sufficient ethical safeguards, or decline the appointment on the grounds that the structural self-oversight conflict is irreconcilable through disclosure alone?

WXY Engineers and City H must jointly decide whether the dual-role arrangement — WXY serving simultaneously as city engineer and as a contracted design services provider — is ethically permissible given WXY's three active contracts, or whether the structural self-oversight conflict is irreconcilable and WXY must decline the appointment. This decision point addresses the core permissibility question, weighing the small-municipality public interest justification against the structural self-oversight prohibition, and determines what structural conditions, if any, can render the arrangement ethical.

WXY Engineers accepts the city engineer appointment, proactively discloses all three active contracts and their self-oversight implications to City H, proposes structural safeguards including recusal from advisory recommendations that directly trigger new design contract opportunities for WXY, and commits to ongoing disclosure of evolving conflicts — treating the small-municipality public interest justification and the no-private-work mitigation as sufficient to render the arrangement ethical under these conditions.

WXY Engineers declines the city engineer appointment on the grounds that holding three active design contracts while serving as the oversight authority for those same contracts creates a structural self-oversight conflict that disclosure alone cannot cure, and recommends that City H seek an independent full-time city engineer or an alternative consulting firm without active contracts with the city.

WXY Engineers accepts the city engineer appointment only after the three existing active contracts are novated to an independent engineering firm or completed, eliminating the immediate self-oversight conflict while preserving WXY's eligibility to serve as city engineer and bid on future design contracts under a disclosed dual-role arrangement going forward.

Engineer