Nov 20, 2020 Board of Ethics on 2020-11-20 3:00 PM (SPECIAL CALLED MEETING)

Okay. Hello, everyone. We are here for the special called meeting of the Board of Ethics. And we have one item for consideration today, BOE 20-023, ethics complaint number 20-001 filed on October 15th, 2020 concerning alleged violations of ethics ordinance section 2-273. And I'll go ahead and share my screen. So this is the agenda information sheet. So the background is that the complaint was made by a citizen named Scott Campbell, and it was concerning Deb Armitour, and he claimed that she was in violation of 2-273. And he talked about a video that she had, well, the video of a city council meeting. And our Board of Ethics met on October 22nd, or a panel of our Board of Ethics met, and they found that the complaint was baseless. And on the 27th, they sent the letter that it was baseless. And on the 29th, Mr. Campbell appealed that, which now brings us to why we're here today. And Madison had previously talked to Alan, who's in the meeting, too. And the nature of this hearing is limited to the question of whether the panel's determination on the 26th in dismissing the case was erroneous. And so the standard is whether the allegations and evidence contained in the complaint, if true, would constitute a violation of the Code of Ethics. And so the complaint's on the screen now. And like I said at the beginning, he claimed that Deb Armitour actively campaigned for reelection during a meeting, and he claimed it was unethical for several reasons, conflict of interest, using official post-it meeting of Denton Council to campaign for reelection during an active campaign. And hopefully we've all read that and are familiar with that. So my initial thoughts are he claims conflict of interest, and it reminds me of some of our first complaints, where he might be thinking conflict of interest, but not using the ordinance's definition of conflict of interest. I would agree with the panel at the initial hearing that the complaint is baseless and doesn't fall under 2-273A. And they also talked about whether it fell under 2-273G, which I also agree with them that it did not. They discussed a lot about whether the video is included in this complaint. And I think what we're supposed to do is follow the four corners of this complaint and not look at evidence outside of that. But that would be something that Mia Madison has talked about in January, maybe talking about and clarifying our rules and the ordinance as far as whether we can look at that when there's a complaint. But I think it doesn't even matter in this case, because I don't even think we get there. I think it's baseless. So is there any discussion on this? Anybody have any thoughts? Let's see. Is anybody? Oh, Alan? Hey, Madam Chair. If you don't mind, if no one's fighting for the microphone since I haven't gotten to speak with you all, Ian helped early on in the faces of this. But by way of orientation, I wanted to just remind the board that when the City Council adopted this ordinance, one of the features they wanted to include was basically pre-screening or pre-filtering complaints before they get to the full board. And so the standard is very straightforward and simple, and our chairperson has spelled it out precisely. And so we have these panels that have these predeterminations. If perhaps either party thinks the panel got it wrong, there's a procedure to have a hearing just on that point, not on the merits of the complaint, but on the point of whether or not it was rightfully dismissed as being baseless, as that term is defined under Denton's code. And we talked about this a lot when we do the training and that sort of thing. There may be conduct that a member of the public finds offensive or inappropriate or outrageous or something. And that may be legitimately how they feel. That doesn't mean there's always a remedy under the City of Denton's code of ethics. So you have this process for pre-filtering and then appeal before this board, and you get to decide not to the person do what they're alleged to have done, but if you take everything in the complaint as true, you assume, does it add up to anything? Does it add up to something actionable that warrants a full-blown hearing? And that's where you are today. The only question is, did the three-person panel get it wrong? Yes or no? And if you think they got it wrong, well, then you can, by majority vote, go forward with the full-blown hearing. I will work with your city auditor, Madison, to schedule the hearing and get you prepared for it. Or you can uphold what the panel did. That really is the extent of what we're doing here this afternoon. And I see Ronnie has joined us as well. And Ronnie, we had just gone over, we don't see you, but if you can hear us, we just went over the complaint and what happened in the initial hearing. And I had shared my opinion that I agree with the panel, and I think that we should uphold what the panel found on the 26th. Does anybody have, is everybody in agreement or does anybody disagree with that, Patricia? I don't disagree. I just had a question. Were you saying that we should have watched the video or not watched the video? I did watch the video, but is there a problem with watching the video of the meeting? So well, I watched the video of the meeting and we are deciding whether the panel, well, I watched both videos. There's the panel meeting video and there's the video from the city council meeting. I'm not sure if the city council meeting should be included or not. That slips unclear. And you probably heard them talk about that in the panel meeting is he specifically mentioned it and puts on a timestamp. So what Ian was saying at that panel meeting is that that's just going to be up to us to decide whether we would include that or not. But I'm not sure because to me, it seems like it would just be the four corners of this complaint and we wouldn't go out by that at all. But I think that's something me and Madison have already talked about a few things to talk about in the January meeting, but I think that's something we should clear up. So in the future, we don't have the panel asking about it the night of the hearing or the afternoon of the hearing. Oh, I see. So I don't even think we got to see the video, but you know, I'm not, but you know, it seems like it would be harder to decide without seeing the video. But yeah, I get what you're saying. And that's just what we're going to have to decide is if we can go outside of the complaint at all. Or in this case, when he is specifically telling us what to do, can we look at that before the panel meeting? And I don't know if you have a thought about that, Alan. I do. I don't think that it was wrong or a problem that that someone viewed the video link. No need for it to be stricken from the record or, you know, forget what you saw or that sort of thing. But I do think the way the ordinance is worded, it's just the written materials that are submitted. Or so I wanted to submit a flash drive or something else with evidence on it. I think they could have done that. But I agree with our chairperson that the purposes of this meeting today, it doesn't really matter. You have an allegation that someone spoke at a city council meeting, that they talked, they were basically campaigning at a council meeting, and that the complainant thinks that is wrong. And so if you assume that it's true, this person did talk, they did say these sorts of things at this meeting, and they're covered by this ordinance. Does that mean that if it's all true, there's a violation, we need to go in to have some evidence and decide whether there's an infraction or so. What's the consequence of that? So the video to me, the link is really extraneous. It's extra. Just assume the complaint is true. Does it add up to something? Your panel said no. Does the rest of the group think that perhaps the panel missed something, didn't understand what they were doing, or made a mistake? I've got a question to follow up on that. If there's no other new information beyond what was written in the complaint and the information from the panel, there's nothing additional that we can make a decision different from, is there? I would agree with you that there's no new information, there's no basis other than, and this happens, it happens in ethics world, it happens in municipal government. One group looks at the same data, comes to one conclusion, a different group looks at the same data later, and concludes that the first group got it wrong. They made a mistake, they didn't understand, they missed something. That does in fact happen. But the way Denton's code of ethics is written, it really does put the burden on the complainant to get the complaint correct, to provide the evidence up front, and to actually identify something that's covered by the code. Otherwise, what you end up becoming is sort of an all purpose complaint desk for people that don't like what someone did. And they may have a grievance. It doesn't mean that there is a remedy for that before the Board of Ethics. Okay, thank you. Yeah, and my opinion is that, you know, he might have a grievance with what happened, whether he believes it happened or not, whether it actually happened or not, but I don't think it falls under our ethics code. Does anybody think differently about that, or should we just, you know, have a motion and take a vote? I'm ready for a motion and a vote. All right, well, I guess, could I get, and I guess somebody can correct me if I'm saying this wrong, but if we could get a motion to, I guess, affirm the finding of the three person panel, I don't think I can make the motion as chair, but if somebody else will make that motion and second it, I still move. And do we have a second? Second by Bob. Well, the motion by Ron and the second by Bob and all in favor. I forget, Madison, do we, do I need to go through everybody? Is that how we want to do this on Zoom? Yeah, I think it's best for you to roll call. All right. And I'll just go on the screen from left to right. Bob, what's your vote? Affirm. Rob? Yes. Patricia? Oh, I think you're muted, if you don't mind unmuted. I think he said yes. Yes. Thank you. And Ron? Is Ron, Ron? Oh, Ron Johnson. Sorry. Right there, think. He's got an icon. Okay, I see it. And Ronnie, if you're on with us. I'm not sure if Ronnie's is working, but with or without Ronnie's vote, we don't hear him or see him. We'll go ahead and just not count them either way, but the majority does vote in favor of that motion. So we, yeah, so we have found that the panel, we don't disagree with the panel and that the complaint is baseless. And I think that's, that's all we need to do. Right, Madison or Alan, if anybody has any thoughts, I can just adjourn if we're done. I think you've completed the agenda for today. You can adjourn and then prepare the written letter at the conclusion. All right, thank you. Okay, so we will adjourn and I will get a letter to Madison and we'll go from there. Thank you everybody for taking some time out today for this. Thank you. Bye. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Bye bye.