Jan 27, 2018 City Council on 2018-01-27 9:00 AM

Good morning, everyone. Wanted to welcome you to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Saturday, January 27, 2018. So we're doing the government's business, the citizens' business on a Saturday, a special call meeting. It is 9.05. We have just a couple of three items on our agenda. First one is citizen comments on ethics-related work session report items. Any citizen comments? I believe this was an agenda item that was placed on these meetings to be able to provide some opportunity for public input. So wanted to reiterate that. Seeing none, we'll move on to agenda item number two, which is work session reports. Receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the development of an ethics ordinance, including but not limited to a discussion on conflicts of interest, gifts, honoraria. I had to take a look at that one. Travel, meals, entertainment, outside employment, et cetera . Mayor, Council, thank you for having me here this morning. I'm Alan Borquez, and I'm your consultant through this process. This is our third meeting. The first was a training session. The second meeting was module one, where you went through the process of actually looking at sample ordinance language in a set of categories and making choices as to what you want to see in your ordinance. And now we're here for module number two. And then Mayor listed off the topics we're going to be covering today. The session is designed to be two hours, two and a half hours, but we'll be here as long as it takes for you to work through these topics and feel like you have a good understanding of your choices and you've made decisions as to what you think is appropriate for the city of Denton. And I'm pleased to be here on a Saturday. I know the Council wanted to mix it up a little bit so that those citizens who wanted to come and participate may have a different opportunity to do so other than a work day. I guess I forgot to mention that Saturdays are usually casual days for the Council, so I'm sorry the rest of y'all didn't get that memo, but I'm just kidding. I feel a little out of place here, but go ahead. I'm sorry. I apologize. I think Saturdays are perfectly freestyle, so whatever makes you comfortable. Very diplomatic. Thank you. I appreciate that. And for those who just need to have a tie on like Mr. Leal, that's just perfect. Here's the list of our items. And just as with module one, I've organized this in a way that gives you some questions. The questions are designed to get you conversing amongst yourselves. You can ask questions of me and I'll share any experiences that I may have. And then there's sample language taken from a wide variety of Texas municipalities showing you how they dealt with that subject matter. And the first is that of conflict of interest. And this is one of those things where I think I can say that everyone knows it when they smell it. It means different things to different people. And in Texas, we used to have a common law notion of conflict of interest where judges decided on a case by case basis. The many years ago, the Texas legislature did away with the common law and by statute adopted 171 of the Texas Local Government Code and they defined conflicts of interest to mean financial interests. Do you get more than 10% of your revenue from this entity? Do you own 10% or more of the stock? Do you own real estate, the value of which is $15,000 or more? Those sorts of thresholds were established by state law and that's what a conflict of interest was. And if you didn't meet those thresholds and the requirements of the statute don't apply and you're free to fully participate as a member of the governing body in whatever discussions, whether it's contracts or permits or other types of appro vals. Well, I think because of that definition in state law, some cities have decided to put their own definition of conflict of interest in, perhaps either to mirror state law and give their ethics board authority over that or to draw the line slightly different. And so here you have some opportunity to discuss where you think the line should be drawn and some related questions. If you looked at some of the examples that I provided you, you'll see that a lot of the language deals with the exceptions. What is not a conflict of interest? What will not trigger what is commonly the consequences, which is disclosure of that conflict and restraining from participating in any discussions or voting regarding that issue. But you can sort of draw the line where you would like to. And so the first prompt I gave you is this issue of drawing a line when it comes to financial interests. And do you have any thoughts on where you'd like to start with this? If you have value ownership and an interest in something, you own some land or something, you know, whether you're getting an annual income, whatever , you shouldn't be able to participate in anything on the council that involves that. That's kind of the way I look at it. So you suggest that any ownership interest or financial interest should be enough to trigger our prohibitions? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Keely? And then Sarah. I'm of the same mind. I've held that belief since we started our ethics talks at zero percent. One is because it's a percentage of income and everybody's income is different. And so it doesn't necessarily always seem equal if you put a percentage of income in there as an excuse. Okay. So not only don't have a percentage, don't have a dollar amount. If you get a dollar of income, you own a dollar of stock, you own any value of land at all, it triggers. Any other comments or is that the consensus of the council? Sarah? I would say same. Yes, George. I don't, it helped me understand if I'm missing something, but based on that conversation, if you have a 401(k) and it's invested, you know, whatever, the slower growth stocks, you could potentially own a stock and a little bit of everything or be benefiting from a little bit of everything and have no way really to track that. Am I wrong? That is correct. It would be very difficult for the individual investor in a mutual fund to track those many stocks that make up the portfolio. Right. And I would ask that we speak on that. I mean, are you saying, because in that instance, if I track what Don's suggesting, then anyone that has stock, you know, if you have a traditional stock investment that is managed through fidelity or something like that, then that makes it mighty onerous, in my opinion. I mean, maybe there's a difference in a direct ownership and just carte blanche, nothing, you know, how do you track that? Don't you have a slide addressing that later on? Is that as far as mutual funds and common investment? Yeah, okay. What we would do is go to if that's the direction the council wants to go, where you're wanting to regulate any sort of investments, no matter the dollar amount, I'd be recommending you at least consider us putting in some exceptions. And one exception that I found in other codes are things like mutual funds, common investment funds, unless you are participating in the management of that fund, then it's an exception and you're not going to be triggering the ethics ordinance by your 401k. Is that a follow up because got a couple of people asking? No, no, I just as I work around, I want to hear from them. Oh, yeah, okay. You know, I want to get that feedback based on that information. Okay, good. Well, I agree that we that there needs to be exceptions for mutual funds, common investment funds. Simply because, you know, those of us who have an IRA or 401k or whatever initials you attribute to them, those mutual funds are managed by somebody else. And those managers buy and sell. And I don't know when they're buying, I don't know when they're selling, I don't know what I'm really owning. I don't want to know. I once owned some individual stock and realized I couldn't handle it because I had to read every day where the stock was in it. And that was not my personality to deal with that. But if we don't have an exception like that, there's a good possibility that every one of us would be violating and not even be aware of it. If we if we had mutual funds or common investment funds. So for sure that there should be exceptions for that. As far as the sentiments that were expressed earlier about that any interest as far as just the general rule, are you are you okay with that? You're talking more about the exceptions. Okay. Can you go back to the last slide? Certainly. I'm wondering if to address George's concern, we could put what amount of known business interest will trigger the code of ethics? Because if you don't know what is in a mutual fund, how could you possibly violate? You could know. Well see if you know that your mutual for instance, there's some mutual funds that are they're like high risk or high growth, if you will. You pretty much know what's going in there. It's going to be like some international type. I mean, you know what's in there. There's not that much. So if we say, okay, no mutual funds, but technically it's a fund that smaller fund and people know what's in it, I don't know, I feel like that could raise a conflict. John, you have a comment? I guess my question is, it depends on what we're dealing with. Are we dealing with a zoning issue or are we dealing with an overall code that hits an industry? Because if you go into percent of ownership, you know, when the DDC comes out, you know, none of us, all of us own some type of property in town, are we allowed to vote on that? So that's where you have to kind of be careful in how you word this as to what portions of your percent of ownership hit. Does it hit strictly the business? Does it hit a zoning issue or does it hit a blank that a blanket item isn't covered by it? I think, you know, what I'm thinking of is for instance, my personal ownership of stocks and mutual funds is almost all in PACCAR because my husband works for PACCAR. So if we were to exclude all mutual funds, I could then potentially start voting on things that affect PACCAR in our city and to me that would be, I wouldn't do it but it just doesn't strike me as the right balance. So I think there are situations where your mutual fund can have, be pretty heavy on something that could create a conflict. But I don't know the answer to that question. I think you're asking for answers and I don't have any. Well and another item would be anything on our gas cut because I'm sure that there's probably a couple of us up here and there will be in the future people who get income not necessarily from within the city but there is also that potential that that same company works in the city that works on a lease, you know, out west Texas someplace. And that's really, to me, this is the easy part to define but the harder part is when you're trying to define the business interest as it relates to the issue before the council, an example, some mineral interest both in the city and out of the city, the minimus amount of money, all right. So when we have an oil and gas well ordinance that comes up that applies to everybody, that applies to everything, I think it would be, I think we need to be very careful how we draft this so that because what seems to be the assumption is if you have any interest in something that even generally comes before the council, you're automatically tainted and cannot see that and vote on that in a way that's not perceived in your interest like PACCAR. Let's use your example as well because I don't, I hear what you're saying but so for instance, oil and gas regulation comes up before the council. So for me to recuse myself because I get, let's say, I don 't even know what it is, to tell you the truth, 50 bucks a month in an oil roll to either in or out of the city. To say that I can't make a decision that's in the best interest of the city because I'm getting paid $50 a month, I think is we've got to figure out this threshold and if it's the dollar amount fine but I think it's more tied to what degree is it specifically related to what you're being asked to consider. Because now yeah, if somebody says, you know, if your mental interest is coming from XYZ and XYZ is wanting a permit or a variance to this permit over here, I get that but where do we draw the line on the specificity of how these two things sort of interrelate? The conflict of interest rules and regs and the issue that 's before the council. To me that's the most difficult part because you could draft this in a way that none of us could vote on half the stuff that comes before us. I think we need to be careful about that. I think if we're starting from the assumption that people basically are selfish and greedy and will always vote their self interest, okay. Then we'll craft a code that's based upon that premise. Am I making sense as far as how this can get -- you've got to be careful to balance these interests. >> It does make sense and this is a common problem because it's easy to define an interest as being broad until you actually start to implement it. And so I think, you know, using your example of oil and gas , if it was an ordinance or regulation that had broad application citywide and affected a lot of different oil and gas corporations or interest holders, that might be one thing versus a particular oil and gas company coming before us for a permit. And that's a specific one and you have a financial interest or another council member has an interest in that particular company, that would be a place to draw the line. It's not common to do that sort of line drawing but that's where the problems come in later as you try to implement this. Another example is real estate. If you have any interest in real estate, does that preempt you from discussing or voting on a matter that may affect that property up or down? Well normally a city is going to add some language in there that says, well, your interest needs to be distinguishable from the rest of the general public. So if it's going to affect the property values of everyone on this side of town, well then your conflict is not unique. You still get to participate, you still get to vote. But if it's something that's happening specifically in your neighborhood, it's going to affect your house, your business up or down. Well then that's the trigger that makes you have to recuse yourself. And so we can get more specific on the application if that 's what the council wants. Yeah, and then I'm recognizing, and I hear that. The problem becomes another example, I own multifamily property, apartments. So a long time ago we had what's called a property maintenance code coming through where you passed a series of codes to really try to upgrade and to provide a standard of property maintenance. And so there was that kind of talk of, oh, if you own property, how can you regulate that because you're going to vote. This is where I think there's a -- because even in your last example when you said if you own a piece of property and it applies to the city in general, but if you have something that something's going to apply to a neighborhood, there's the assumption that somehow whatever is being applied to the neighborhood is going to have some impact, some financial impact on your property. Yes. But that's -- I mean, gosh, there's people who have whole businesses trying to determine that. So I'm not saying that I'm against it. I'm not saying -- I'm just saying these are the problems, these are the unintended consequences that we have to be aware of because I just don't believe that the assumption is that everybody's going to vote in their self-interest depending on if they have any kind of interest. And I don't mind putting in there any value of ownership. To me, the question isn't what we put here. The question is what we're talking about, and that is at what point as that business interest is defined, how does that relate to the policy discussion that you're having? There to me is the real question. And it is the hardest question. This is easy. That's the hardest question. If you want to try to balance it, if you're just saying if you own anything, if you own any gas royalties, if you own any of this and that, because like Councilmember Ryan said, most of us here own property, so when we're passing stuff that -- how do you know if it's citywide, how do you determine? So anyway, this is critical for me as far as just how we move forward and what will allow people who want to run for Council to be able to say, okay, I can do this and not feel like I have to be recusing myself at every turn of the corner. And I just think there should be some clear boundaries. You can't have them totally clear. But I think if they're really gray, you're just opening things up to a lot of problems. So that's just where I am on it, because I mean, like in your example, Sarah, if your stock's in a mutual fund -- now, if you own it individually , okay, I can understand that. But if it's in a mutual fund and all that, you have no control over it, I get it. You know, I get it. And then at what point do we allow each Councilmember to -- you know, anyway. This is -- I mean, this is the crux, really, of the -- this has been the complaint and what's really been the origin of our discussion now has been how do you divide conflicts of interest and then how do you implement it and apply it in the policymaking process? And so I would rather spend a lot more time on this as we move through these slides and get this as fair and equitable and as some people would say tough, I guess, as we need to but also not cripple people's ability to run and people 's ability to govern. So Keely, and then we'll go around the horn. So I had a lot of comments piled up in my head, but I just want to say this one. I do not own any property and I do not own any oil and gas interest and I do not believe that that would prohibit people from running. It may just encourage more people like me to run. So that's just my follow-up to that. I'm not understanding what you're -- the point you're trying to make. Okay. No, I'm not being critical. I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. Well, you're saying that more people would be discouraged from running from counsel if they had interest in things because they would have to rec use themselves to vote. I'm saying that it may encourage more people who do not have personal interest in things to run. That's all I'm saying. Okay. I don't have the conflicts, apparently, that you have and so I'm not in that same position and I still chose to run for counsel. I really don't see them as conflicts, but I mean, yeah, that's -- Right. Yeah. Because, I mean, I'll be able to walk -- no matter what we decide, I mean, I'm not going to sit here and vote on something that has a direct impact on my ability to earn a living or something, so I'm not worried about that. But yeah, I see what you're saying. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, sure. John? Well, I guess kind of following up on your point is that part of that when you're looking at income, it might be coming from the same entity, but does it relate to the issue that's at hand? Well, the actual example of that is, you know, my wife and I own some apartments and occasionally the university will rent an apartment for a year for somebody that -- for a professor or somebody that's coming in and so they're paying the rent . Well, now we're getting money from UNT. Is that really income from UNT? So now I should recuse myself from voting on something that affects them. You know, that's -- when you get into the larger entities that have multiple facets to do their business, that's where I think we're going to have to be careful in crafting this so that it -- the issue that comes up is related to the item -- I don't know quite how to put this -- but your income is related to the item that is there, not the larger entity in and of itself. I think that's why there is actually some value in talking about this in terms of percentages. I think that's why the state did it in terms of percentages because, I mean, you look at some of the things in the Constitution where there's actually a dollar amount, you know, that triggers this, that or the other and it's $20 and, you know, I'm probably the only one in here that buys ties that cost less than $20. You know, I mean, you know, yet that would trigger, you know, issues for -- at this level or that level in federal law because we put a dollar amount . And I think the reason why you have a percentage issue -- and you're right, 10% of a million dollars is a whole lot more money than 10% of $1,000. But, you know, whether it's 10% or 5%, at some point, you know, if only 5% of your income or 3% of your income is coming from this particular business interest, it really doesn't matter that much. It doesn't have that much impact, even if it's a lot of money, if it's only 3% of your value. And I think that that's sort of -- that's why that there is some merit to looking at it in terms of percentages. I think if you say, you know, any annual income, yeah, John , if it's annual income and if it's any annual income, then if one, you know, apartment is rented by the university, of yours and a couple of other people's, then all of a sudden you might have two or three people on council that can't vote on an issue. And that's not going to be -- it's probably -- it's highly unlikely that that's going to really impact your ability to be fair. But you have to have some definition because, I mean, there are people that say -- there are people on this council that have a conflict of interest in voting on anything on the University of North Texas because they attended the University of North Texas. I mean, that's -- you know, we have to have something. It can't be all or nothing. >> I was going to -- anybody want to just add? Yes, and then we'll just go around then. >> Well, I would be okay with tying an annual amount of income to it, like a dollar amount. I'm really not in favor of the percentages because of the inequity of it. I just feel like it rewards people with more income and they can then participate in more votes that have -- could have a potentially large amount of financial impact, but because they have a large income, it's not excluded. So if we want to tie a fixed dollar amount, I would be in favor of that. I'm okay. It sounds like everybody's okay with having -- what is the name for it when you don't manage a fund? I guess manage mutual funds. You know, I'm okay with excluding that, although I still think -- I still think some funds have -- are really heavy on certain stocks, so. But as far as the annual income part of it, I would like to see that number be low. I'm like you. I have oil and gas interests. It's against my will, but it's like $50 a year, some ridiculous amount of money, and I would hate to not be able to vote on a gas well ordinance because of that. So if we can tie a dollar amount to it, I think that will take care of some of the more de minimis issues. And so I have a question for you. You said you'd hate to not be able to vote on a gas well ordinance based upon that. Why is that? What would -- I mean, I know what your answer is going to be, but I want to -- Well, yeah, because, I mean, we had a gas well fire 1,000 feet from my house, and my interest is in protecting our neighborhood, not in the 50 crappy dollars I get from Vantage Energy. Right. And the point being, you're not regulated or controlled by that amount of money. You're able to step back and go, no, I have a higher duty. I have a higher interest. Sure, yes. Yes. And I understand what you're saying about that. You know, I don't think that the assumption is that people always act in their self-interest. I think what I view the ethics ordinance role is building transparency and public trust. That's what I view it as, is so that people feel confident that when we enter a decision-making process, we've thought of these things, and it's not just, oh, well, sign the form. You can -- you'll do fine. So that's really what I view this as, not as, like, everybody has some pernicious, you know -- I understand. Sure. -- goals. Yeah. Okay. George, any comments? Yes. So I can get on board with kind of where Mayor Pro Tem is, and maybe the number's $1,000 or so, right? I mean, I disagree with the assertion that -- I think you have to factor in -- I think spouses count, right? So I can't -- and we all own homes for the most part. If I'm wrong, then correct me when I'm wrong. But we all own homes. We're all tied to the tax rate. We all deal with the school board at some form, fashion, meet with them, talk with them. So we have our hands in that jar as well. So yeah, I think an all-out exclusion doesn't work for me. I think a number amount -- a dollar amount, sure. If we want to go $1,000, $2,000, I think that's palatable for me. And I get to that number based on figuring $70,000 a year for a household, 1% of that is $700. Crank that up to 2%. That's $1,400. And, you know, you walk that back a bit for it to catch var iances or whatever. But that's how I came up with the $1,000. And I think, hey, if someone -- I think that's appealing. But also, I think the thing I wrestle with is the all-out exclusion. To me, I have to weigh the fact -- if I'm a ne'er-do-well, is that motivating me to come forward or is that pushing me further underground, right? If I can't have anything and I have to take care of my household, that's my regular job. You know, but I enjoy service. Is it worth it to me? I mean, because I'm assuming all of this is primarily self- reported. I mean, if you -- the bulk of it will be, you know. And so that's the thing for me. An all-out exclusion, you know, if you're one mile over the speed limit, you're getting a ticket. I mean, we just don't function that way in society. There's no extremes. And I want it to be enforceable. So if I'm going to hold everyone's feet to the fire every time, I need to have some comfort that there's -- that I'm giving -- I'm not putting a str anglehold on a person's ability to support their household. And I don't -- again, I think that's the X factor. When you talk -- Councilmember Briggs, when you talk about you don't own this side or the other, but I think you factor in your husband, you factor in, you have a house, you know, you never know what you're going to inherit, God forbid. And so there's just a lot of moving parts that would then, you know, affect this council. And if we go to just -- I would think if we go to absolute zero, then there's -- you're going to have to have a chapter for when you don't have a quorum because we don't know who's going to run in the future. And again, I'm looking at enforceability at 100 percent. And so if you're going to do that and if you're going to have zero percent and there's a university, there's PACCAR, there's several large corporations in this community, then I think you then have to have a contingency plan for when you can't make a quorum . What do you do? You know, when you have three or four recuse themselves, where does that put you? You know, and so that to me is just -- it gets more complicated, harder to enforce, and I want something easy to enforce all the time. Don? Well, one possibility is to put a dollar value on there and /or a percentage. You know, that's one thing I'm kind of thinking of. You know, and things like mutual funds and all of that, if you're not part of the management, I think the management is the key to that. If you're not part of what's managing that, then, you know, you really don't have, you know, a conflict. And you know, the one that you mentioned, I rented a house to the president of UNT for a while. It wasn't my house, but I was managing it. So I was getting income from it. And you know, that's -- as far as recusing somebody because they went to a university, I think it's totally out of bounds. So let's go down through this list here. So value of ownership interest, that has a dollar amount there, but -- so that's the dollar amount as compared to percentage of ownership. So are you wanting us to sort of come up with a consensus of a specific value or that we're -- we don't -- that's not necessary to put in it? On this slide, is that sort of what you're looking for direction on? I think this discussion is exactly what I was hoping to get from the group. And yes, if you have a dollar amount in mind, we can plug that in and see how it works out in the ordinance. It helps to sometimes have a bright line test. Otherwise, it's all going to be case by case basis. You know, for many years, the Attorney General's Office of Texas printed a book on ethics codes. And it said in one section that if a city council member owned property within 200 feet of a piece of property for which some city action was being considered, such as a zoning change, you had a conflict of interest, must file an affid avit and abstain. Then years later in advising someone, I went back to that AG's handbook and looked for the 200 foot rule and it wasn't there. What happened to it? No legislative change, no AG opinion. I managed to track the source down and realized that was never the law to begin with. Some Assistant Attorney General put it in this guidebook somewhere along the line and they probably took it from the zoning rule which says if you're doing your rezone, everyone within 200 feet deserves notice of a public hearing. So at one point in time, we thought, okay, if you're 201 feet away, no conflict of interest. But if you're 198, you've got a conflict. Well, statewide, that rule is gone. But for a long time, people found that sort of thing helpful. So where are you now? Case by case analysis under state law where you've got a conflict of interest which doesn't give most decision makers any comfort. Do they err on the side of being cautious or do they err on the side of voting which they thought they were elected to vote or, you know, protecting their neighborhoods and their side of town? That's the issue that you're wrestling with right now and that's very difficult. Okay. So what I think I heard you say was the discussions going along the track you had hoped for but we're coming to the point where we need to give some direction specifically on these parameters. Is that what I'm -- >> I would ask you and the council to give me some direction as to what you think makes sense or give me marching orders to come back and fill these numbers in myself with a recommendation to present to you in the future. >> Okay. All right. So let's go with -- let's try the first -- what I perceive to be the easier one -- well, it might not be the easier one. It's the more bright line. Annual income. We've had a couple of council members say that they'd be more comfortable with maybe a flat number. We had one say that maybe it's a combination of a percentage or a bright line number and maybe the lesser of the two or something like that. So who wants that to be -- if you receive $1 of income, then you have to -- in the end of the sentence you're going to have to recuse yourself. Who wants that? Okay, we got -- Councilmember Briggs wants that. Does anybody else want that? Okay. All right. Which means basically -- all right. So now we're just trying to figure out at least from the rest of us understanding Councilmember Briggs' position, what do we believe is a number there that we can come up with a consensus that obviously can -- all of this is going to be subject to review after six months or year or whatever to see how all this is working. So we heard $1,000 or $1,500 or $500 or -- yes. I'd say 500. Okay. Who's okay with 500? I'm good with 500 or 1,000. Okay. Either one. I can't. I can't be in line with 500. I mean, I just -- if I use -- and I'm just going to -- just doing -- just kind of trying to support my thoughts, regular Councilmembers get 9K-ish a year. Mayor of position gets 1,000 a year in stipends. I mean, you know, whatever that is. You know, whatever. 10,000. You know. But as an audience, does that mean that 9,000 a year has us bought and sold like we're going to -- to the exclusion of everything else? It's because I receive that per year that I all of a sudden have on blinders. I say no. And so, again, 1,000 is extremely low to me. But I think to kind of meet the middle, I can get to 1,000 plus. But anything sub-1,000, I just think -- I mean, you can -- I mean, 500 is just too low. For me to enforce all the time, right? I don't want to have to come back and rehash. I want -- here's the rules and enforce them. And so I have a hard time getting there. Okay. Yes, John. I think we could possibly look at going with the tax code. If you have 1099, it's -- there's a dollar amount set with that 1099. If you have enough income that you would get a 1099 from it , if you get a W-2, you know, any W-2 income, then that falls into it. So that starts out at $1, whereas the 1099 is 600 generally , depending on what type of -- depending on what it is. Well, if it's for attorneys, it falls even lower than that, I believe. I think it's anything for attorneys. Yeah. But there -- in K-1s, where it's business income, that kind of gives you some floating different numbers accordingly, that if you actually are a wage earner from that company, that's a different story than a 1099, that you do plumbing work and did so much work for that person. So I want to ask each councilmember to answer this question . You don't have to if you don't want to. But it helps me understand where we all are. And I'm going to use the example that John chose as far as -- let's say you own 50 units of apartments. And I don't rent to UNT, so I'm not using 90. But let's just say that's the example. So you've got 50 to 100 units. You rent one unit for six months for $600 to UNT. Well, first of all, as I'm thinking about it, the first question comes up is, all right, if while you're leasing it, some issue of UNT comes up, or maybe the lease is expired and they're no longer leasing from you, but you obtain that money within that year or so. So is it -- each person's position that using that example, that if you had any income, whether it's an apartment lease or a mineral royalty, but that if you had that money coming in and you had $6,000 or $5,000 coming in from rent of all your units, one just happened to be re-rented by a professor, and the convention center vote comes up, to place it out there -- I only choose that. I'm not choosing to drag up old stuff. But that's pretty -- no, let's do it. Let's do it differently. The McDonald's issue. The McDonald's issue. All right? So it came up to where UNT is opposed to this and these other people want it. So is it your position that the council member who has that should recuse themselves from that vote? I'm just trying to understand where we are from a -- yes? The UNT grad thing does not have -- I don't have an ownership interest. I'm not talking about UNT grad. I'm talking about if you rented -- if someone -- let's say you. You had an apartment building. You had some apartment. You rented a room to a professor and UNT paid for it for six months. Total maybe $3,000 or $4,000. In the grand scheme of your income, it's pretty much nothing. They're there for six months. They're gone. If the vote comes up that involves the University of North Texas, do we -- would you feel that you needed to recuse yourself from that vote? I probably would. Okay. Personally. All right. Oh, sure. Go ahead. One, because if there was a chance for them to come back and rent more possibly, I wouldn't want to -- it's possible that you can make your decision based on something they would do in the future more so than what they've done in the past . Okay. Well, and I'll also go to -- that's your gross revenue when you start looking at the rent coming in. So if your gross revenue is a half million dollars a year and your net is $100,000, then one-fifth of the rent that came in is actually what is income to you because of all the expenses involved. Sure. And you're paying gross rent and -- That's what that's saying. And that's why I'm thinking maybe there's something in the tax code because UNT is not going to send you a 1099 that they paid rent. So is it a service-type item or is it a -- you know, how is that income coming to you? Did you make a sale? Okay. Y'all turned a really easy example into -- but this is a great example, though -- But if you've got a retail store -- How difficult this is. When UNT is purchasing books from your retail store, then are you getting income from that entity? But this is my point, that there's so many different -- so I'm going to say $1,000, annual income. I mean, it seems like we had some consensus on that, but what I'm hearing -- and you sort of affirmed it -- $1,000 annual income. Well, how do we define annual income? Is annual income the net income from a business interest? I assumed it was net because we wouldn't consider gross income income. I mean, it would be net, less your expenses. I don't think you can assume it. We'll just put it in there, then. Yeah, that's fine. I think if you use taxable income, as to how it ends up getting reported on your tax return. You can defer income on your return for years. Can you explain how for me? [Laughter] And I think this conversation illustrates the difficulty of this subject matter. It doesn't mean we can't plow through it and come up with a number, but I think moving forward it's going to be very clear when we haven't considered in this ordinance, when we start having to consider case-by-case basis because somebody has filed an ethics complaint against somebody, and then you're going to have to go through and figure out -- that's when you're going to find where your holes are in your ethics ordinance. That's where you're going to find the scar tissue. So I'm hearing $1,000, but I heard $500, but I've heard $1, 000 seems like it may be somewhat consistent. Do I get enough head nods on that, or Dalton, your head's staying very static. Well, I'm taking my medicine, so I'm not shaking today. [Laughter] Lord. I think it's ridiculously low myself. Okay. All right. Yes? Yeah, I'm starting to think $1,000 is really getting very low. Maybe two or three. I don't know. Somebody just threw something out there. Yes, Mayor Perkins. So a substantial interest in local government code of a business entity is considered $2,500 or more. Is that right, Ellen? Am I getting that right? I don't remember that number. I remember that. But if you're looking at it -- You're looking at the code? Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming it hasn't been updated, but it says the person has a substantial interest in real property if the interest isn't -- this is a real property in the business interest section. If you have an equitable or legal ownership with fair market value of $2,500 or more. And then if I remember correctly, the part that we repealed had a $500 limit. It was like a percentage or 500, whichever is greater. But I can't remember exactly where that was. So I mean, if we want to go to $1,000, that's fine, but there's no way I would go over what -- I mean, I don't want to have a code that's weaker than the state ordinances or the state rules. So you're saying your max is $2,500? No, my max is $1,000. Okay. All right. But I mean, I think we did this to create a more robust rule than what the state has. I don't want to go to what the state rule is. Okay. Okay. All right. Comment on that. I'm good at $1,000. Yeah. I look forward to listening to the conversation, to kind of hone in on the concern, right? I don't think we've normalized the driving force behind the ethics. I think the ethics code, I think it means a lot of different things to a lot of different council members. All in all, it's succinct. It's to hold people's feet to the fire, hold them accountable, give the public trust. But how to best go about that, I think, is where there's some differing approaches. Because again, I've not heard anyone else speak to it, but I think if -- again, just if I'm nefarious, if I put on the black hat and say, okay, you can make this as stringent as you want if you don't include spouses, or if you're not willing to understand that dynamic, I'll just run everything through my wife. Because she doesn't have any of those concerns, and she doesn't report to anyone, and I come out clean. Right? I mean, so I think you got to look at it in practice. And I think some of that's coming up. I know. I know. But if it's coming up, but it's going to factor in right now. Right? And I think that's the thing. You're saying you're going to set this number, and it's coming up later. Do we then come back to the number after we've discussed that, hey, spouses count? Or can we all just understand that spouses count, and reality is, if someone wants to subvert the rules, they're going to subvert the rules. Happens at FBI every day. We're not the FBI. You know, so I'm just saying, let's ground it in reality and say, what is actually normalized and enforceable to a high degree? And let's have that conversation now about significant others, whatever those outside interests are, because if it's coming, it matters in this number. And I'm still good with 1,000 with all that factored in, but I think we need to normalize that focus sooner than later, because it's going to cause fractions. Because I mean, I don't think, I just don't think it's going to help the conversation to go back after you set a number, now here's all these other things, and then you have to come back and say, well, now understanding that, I want to change that number. Right? Or I want to change my position. You know? And so I think that's where it gets, if we just go all in, look at it all now, and then perceive that the other, the future slides just kind of fold in. So, at that point, what do we mean by income? Is it annual income? Is it annual net income? Is it annual net family income? What is it? So might I make a suggestion then? Let's think about this, because probably whatever number we choose is going to be in those three. It's going to be the same for those three lines, is my hunch. And then percent of stock and percent of ownership, from what I've heard, people are struggling with percentage numbers. I mean, some, some aren't. So why don't we sort of see what all is going to be included, because I know there's some slides that show that it's not just spouses, it's brothers, sisters, parents, you know, depending on the degree of consanguinity or whatever that other term is. So let's sort of, I think we've had a good philosophical discussion about this, and I think maybe as we move through the other slides, maybe these numbers or these percentages may become more clear. And so I agree with you that once we see the totality of it , we may, let's come back and revisit this. So we'll be able to base it on a little bit more information. I mean, I think the conversation we've had is very good. And it's going to help us down the line. But if we could just, everybody okay with that? Okay. All right. Okay. I think we've, we've covered this one also. The next one discusses the question of, are we going to limit conflicts of interest to those financial interests? And one thing that often comes up is when you don't own stock, you don't get income, but you're otherwise closely affiliated with an organization. We discussed UNT and this is merely graduating from that institution, create a conflict. I think the consensus appears to be no. But what about, you know, a common one membership in the Lions Club or some other civic group? If you're a member in that group, are you allowed to vote on things that either regulate them or give them contracts? Maybe it's religious institutions where you may be a parish ioner and they're involved in some sort of contract for services or real estate deal. All these things actually do come up. And state law would not define any of those relationships as a conflict of interest. But I've given you some examples in your packet of municipal regulations that do address it one way or the other. Yes, being a member precludes you from voting on matters before the council dealing with that group or no, it does not. Do you have any strong feelings one way or the other? Strong feelings? Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. I think when you're an officer, even if you're not receiving remuneration, you have a fiduciary interest or obligation to the organization and you're covered by their insurance. So you're supposed to act in the interest of that organization. So I could see that being, I mean, I think it is an actual conflict if you're voting on something that has to do with the organization at city council. So if you're on the board of directors for a nonprofit like United Way or Fred Mordaay Nursery School, you get nothing out of it. You're on the board of directors and you're probably paying money into it to help them out. But if you're an officer, you have a fiduciary responsibility and therefore you would be have to recuse yourself from any vote. Yeah, I mean, you do have a fiduciary obligation to the organization. That's just the nature of being a board member. Okay. Oh, Kelly. I had officer written down here as well as something that may trigger that. Okay, John. I agree for officers and board members. If it's if we're dealing with a contract or actual allocation of funds, what we need to be careful of is things like the Arts and Jazz Festival. If you're on that committee, you're on that board. Do we now have to pull that consent agenda item to you for what we give them for that event? Is that are you wanting to go that far into it? Yeah, I think you'd have to if you're on the board. I think you have to pull it. Anybody else? Mayor. Getting getting not even 10 o'clock yet. And I tend to agree with you Mayor Pro Tem that if you're if you're if you're on the board, you do have a fiduciary duty. Again, it's for transparent. I don't think that people who are on a board are going to be voting to specifically give someone the money if it's something but but I can understand how perception of that is. Unfortunately, the result of that will be it will be a dis incentive for council members to be on boards of nonprofits, which you can have your own opinion about that. But I think we also know that part of what we're trying to do moving forward in the city as far as administratively and just policy wise is how do we make the lines more clear? I think we the blurred lines have seemed to over a large spectrum of many different types of administration and and policymaking have have created things that we've had to come back and clean up. But as much as I don't want to believe that we should have if you're on a board, if you're a member of a board, that if it comes before the council, the problem becomes then you've got all of our committees like Health and Human Services and the other committee that makes recommendations for funding to all these nonprofit groups, all these different agencies. And so anybody that's serving on those agencies as a board member is going to have to recuse themselves from those votes given this particular situation . So I get a little conflicted about that. So yes, I'm not going to agree to that because I think it's it's too it's too owners. And my other question to that is, we appoint those board members. So if you so we appoint people to CDBG or, you know, different boards. So are we do we recuse ourselves from appointing people if they're if so if we're given that entity or voting on that entities finances are giving them dollars, do we then does that council person then recuse themselves from that duty to appoint someone to that board? Silly Mike. I will give you an example of that. And it's a little got a little bit different twist to it. But, you know, over the years, I've participated in the Denton Housing Authority voucher program that people would pay, you know, I would rent apartments to people who had a voucher program through the Denton Housing Authority, which is financed through HUD. When I became mayor, I had to quit taking people because I HUD said I had a conflict of interest because I appoint the board members that I could not any longer continue to lease to people who are on the voucher program through HUD because I appoint the board members. Now they allowed me to keep the ones already had because I had them for years. And then over time, you know, they they move and things such as that. But I couldn't accept any new clients. So in some way, there was that was an example of if I'm appointing a board member, then I you know, if I have some interest in that particular organization and it was a financial interest because it was for mental income. So I understand that. I agree. It seems I can see it from both sides. I understand Mayor Pro Tem's position fiduciary fiduciary duty is a high degree of duty. I mean, you're putting your interests above. I mean, you're putting that organization's interests above your own. And it's it's it's meant to be that way. So I think to make it clean, I'm OK with that. As far as appointing board members to those committees, then I guess what I'm hearing you say is let's say I've got to pick one. Let's say I'm on the board of what's one of them. Meals on wheels, span or, you know, I'm on that board. And we fund that through the committee. And it's really more about money for me. It's not so much who I'm appointing. You know, I'm saying, hey, we'll agree to this person. So as much as I struggle with it, because, again, I don't think that people are cognitively thinking that I'm going to vote to fund United Way or whatever, Giving Hope Incorporated, because I'm a board member and I want them to have more money than someone else. But it is a pretty bright line rule. So I'm I'm probably leaning to be OK that if you're on a board and you're voting now to me, the question becomes, how specific do you want to be ? You know, if you're given if you're funding United Way to some degree, but you're on a board of one of the United Way agencies. In other words, does it have to be a direct conflict or is it flowed out? You know, like we said, so that doesn't give anybody much clarity. It doesn't give me clarity. But Councilmember Briggs and then we'll go around the horn again. So this would apply to would this apply to the board that we nominated? So if they were an officer, is this what you're saying? They wouldn't be able to nominate their nonprofit for the money? I'm not sure what I'm saying. I don't I don't know if I touched on that to tell you the truth. Yeah, I don't because what's before us is simply if you are on a board, you're either a due paying member or an officer and something comes before the council to vote to fund or to have some kind of impact on that organization. Are we saying we should see that as a conflict and therefore recuse or we're saying it's not a conflict as in none? We're going to come around. Yeah, I'm just curious how many of us currently are on a nonprofit board? I think I am. Okay. Well, I am and I've done a couple of recusals. One was when served in employee to empower came through because while sitting on that board I voted for it so I recuse myself and not vote on it. As you should. As I should. Another example is hot funds that go to the breakfast guan is for the turkey roll. I will not be on the hot funds committee but I also recuse myself when it came as an individual item but as the budgetary overall, you know, do we have to recuse ourselves out of that? That's when you start getting the sticky points but you know, in the main reason for recusing myself on that I'm a dues paying member. I'm a former officer but the reason I felt it very necessary to do it is my name is on the application because I was president at the time we started doing this. I just keep signing every year. But, you know, that's where you start getting into. So for you, an officer, if you're on the board, you're saying it should be labeled as a conflict if there's some kind of funding issue or something some action on counsel. Yes. Specifically related to that entity. Right. If you're looking at a specific contract for funds versus, you know, I'm also on the Beaujolais committee so, you know, if we decided that we were going to let them have the civic center at no charge or we're funding police officers to be there for support, you know, is that something I need to recuse myself? I'm a simple board member on that. Not a -- I don't even know if that comes to the council. It's some of those budgetary items. Arts and Jazz is an example of some place that we give some money for police support and, you know -- Okay. So as a general rule, you're saying if you're an officer and there's an issue before the council for either policy or funding, there should be a rec usal. It should be considered a conflict. Right. If it's a specific contract for that organization. Okay. All right. And I would agree with that also. The situation is we have something that will come later, I think, in terms of if you've been on it within so many years or something like that. I was on the Human Services Advisory Board and became aware of a lot of organizations that I hadn't been as aware of before. Because of that, I ended up on the board not as an officer but on the board of Fred Moore Day Nursery School. I'm off. I got off and I got on council. But does that mean that when we're talking about assigning money recommended by the Human Services Advisory Board to Fred Moore Day Nursery School because I used to be on the board of directors, am I -- do I have to recuse myself from voting on that? I would think that that wouldn't be necessary. I'm not profiting in any way from it. I have no responsibilities anymore for it. I have an affinity for it because I think it's a good organization. But would that -- I would think that that would not rise to the level of a conflict where I would need to recuse myself if I'm voting to send some money from the city to that organization as part of a package. So as far as this particular item, you're saying if you're on the board -- As officer? Yes. Yeah. So if something comes before the council, it could be -- it would be labeled as a conflict and you need to do whatever. And you need to do whatever. Yeah, okay. All right. And I think I've already heard -- Current board member. Yes, current, yes. I just want to clarify. CDBG, Human Services Advisory Committee, all of these city committees, they're not nonprofit entities. So this is a question about nonprofit entities and the fid uciary obligation binds to a nonprofit entity by virtue of their bylaws, not CDBG or human services. Yeah. If I may. Yes. And I want to get your direction or your thoughts on the particular thing at hand. So by the -- somewhere in your conversation, what your thought is on this. Yes. And it's directly controlled by that point that Mayor Pro Tem just made, though, because there are nonprofits that apply to CDBG to receive funds. Right. Yes? Yes. Okay. So the city commission looks at those recommendations and says yes or no. Yes? Yes. So I'm not off. My question is, do you now -- can I serve on one of those nonprofits and -- as an officer and be a council member that votes on that item and appoint s people to that board? That's my question. To the city boards, to the CDBG Board of Health and Human Services. Right. Because they have a deciding interest in making recommendations to council. And council is going to then allocate those funds, yes or no. And so that's my question. Does it filter down to that? Or are we just saying superficially, hey, if you're the first person to get the check, you're good. But the second person, you know -- So -- and that's a good question. So let's deal with the easier one first, and that is -- because that's sort of a nuanced one. You know, in other words, it's twice removed. What you're saying is if I'm on this board, we're not directly voting money to this organization, but we're voting money to that organization through the CDB G or the community services. But let's say if you're just on the board and we're having a direct conversation about funding them directly, would you see that as a conflict? Is that how you want to do this? Give me -- I'm having a hard time. Can you give me an example? Well, okay, you're on -- it's like Dalton said. You're on the Fred Moore Day Nursery School Board. They have an emergency situation that needs a new air conditioning or a new roof. They come to the City Council to ask for additional funding . So we're going to vote on giving them $50,000. You're on the board as an officer. Based upon what I've heard so far, you would need to recuse yourself because you'd have a conflict because you're on that board and we're being asked to directly provide some funding directly to that board. So that's the example. Got it. Okay. No, I don't think that's -- I don't think that's appropriate to have to recuse yourself. Okay. Don. Well, I do think, you know, you're an officer on the board and you're getting -- if there's financial money coming that we're voting on, I think you have to recuse yourself. Okay. So I'm hearing officers. I haven't heard anybody say anything about due paying members. I don't think the fiduciary obligation applies. So if you're a member, it doesn't seem like there's a conflict. But if you're an officer, which rises to that different level, yes. Contingency funds that we quite often, you know, give $100, $500 to a particular organization. How is that going to affect us? Because you might have, you know, Sarah decides to give $ 500 to serve Denton. She -- you know -- To me, that's not -- Would I have to recuse myself if she's doing that? Huh? There's no vote. Well, there's a -- There is a vote. There's a consent -- It's a vote. But yeah, but it's -- those are funds at purely your discretion. So I mean -- Right. And that's why I think we're best off saying if it's a contract between the city, there's anything on hot funds. They've got to prove up that they actually spent the money where they're supposed to spend it. That's -- There's a contract. Yeah, there's -- Is there? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So Dalton. So help me understand. If you're a volunteer for an organization, that's cool. Yes. Is there a distinction between being a board member and being an officer or if you're on the board, are you an officer? I don't understand that. I think so, yes. Yeah. I believe when you're on the board, you're an officer. Okay. Thank you. That's fine. And that's what I would have said. We need to be clear. Yeah. And, you know, I got to bring it up. That's my job. I think that this analysis and the conversation you've had apply to membership in religious institutions. And you don't have to address that, but it certainly does come up. Does merely being a parishioner, a member of a church, is that something you want to fall within the purview of your ethics code or is that left to individuals to decide for themselves? Why don't we do the same thing of saying if you're an officer? So if you're a deacon, a lay minister, how far do you take that in the religious context? Well, I bring it up because in every community, churches are often some of the largest property owners. They're serious employers. They come to the city for zoning changes, variances, and everything else. Does affiliation with those groups need to be something that's disclosed and possibly trigger a requirement to abstain? My comment would be if various different churches, according to how their governance is set up, have different ways of assigning officers. But a lot of churches do have some type of lay officers. And I would think that it would be the same sort of thing as with the other nonprofits. If you're an officer, if you're a member of the deacons or the trustees or the chair of the administrative board or whatever they call it in your particular church, then you might be-- that might be a conflict. But if you're just a member, no, it would not be. That would be my comment on it. Well, I really struggle with this one because you get into a lot of potential-- well, if we use the-- and I think Mayor Pro Tem set sort of a nice kind of defining guideline on helping us maybe process through who's in and who's out, so to speak, on these boards. Because you said by the bylaws, typically they're fiduciary relationships. That's a legal term. I mean, that's-- nobody's going to misunderstand what that means. I really don't think that in most religious institutions, there's that kind of hierarchy or that kind of governing document that creates a potential fiduciary interest. That doesn't mean they don't have an interest. In fact, that's probably the highest interest that someone would have is within their particular belief system. But I would want to see how that-- I don't know if I would want to do that starting out. I think I'd want to see if there's something that-- because I can't think of too many situations where that's come up. And I've been on council 10 years. The only one I can think of is the drainage ditch behind a church there off Fulton or Crescent or something like that that we concreted. And there was some controversy there. But even then, I don't think-- I guess I just-- I mean, I want to be very careful and make sure that we're doing the things that promote the policy of this ethics ordinance, like transparency and those kind of things. But golly, I just don't want to make it to where we're trying to decide what you can vote on and what you can't vote on. So I'm not in favor right now of including religious institutions. Now, if each individual council member is so led at a point where it comes that that's an issue, but I just don't think they're governed the same way as the nonprofits. And I haven't really seen that. I mean, yeah, they come for zoning changes and things such as that. But I mean-- Well, let me give you an example. We have a couple of churches downtown, and downtown churches have parking issues. And what if one of those churches downtown-- there's three or four of them-- wanted to partner with the city in a parking lot? Would a member of the church be OK to vote on it? But would an officer in the church with fiduciary responsibilities in that church be able to vote on it? Well, I mean, I'd say a member absolutely could vote on it. I don't know enough of some church hierarchical structure about fiduciary duties and those kind of things, or officers. I mean, I know there's pastors, and I know there's associate pastors, and things such as that. But as far as most of the people who are handling-- you have committees, finance committee, building committee, child care-- I mean, all these different committees. I don't know if I would make those synonymous with a member of a nonprofit board that has that kind of duty. So I would think that-- the situation that you described, I wouldn't have an issue with that. But that's just me. That's just my opinion. Yes. And then we've got to figure out-- we've got to move past this to figure out some-- yes, go ahead. I just don't want my question about appointing members to go unanswered at this phase. So I want to understand if you can appoint to those boards, as you said, a level removed-- That you're on the board. Can you appoint to the city committees? No. If I'm on council, can I appoint someone to CDBG, which is then going to deal with the nonprofits? That you're on the board of? Correct. I don't-- Well, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're a board member and a council member. Yes. And you appoint-- Yes. I don't see an issue with that. Yes. The recusal takes care of any conflict of appointment because you're never voting on the item. But we don't-- we'll appoint people to boards before it'll come to a vote. That's annual, right? I mean, you-- Jennifer-- You nominate. You don't appoint. You nominate. And then we all vote. And then you could recuse yourself from the vote. OK, change the word. Do you get to nominate? Yes. So you can suggest someone-- Yes. Yes. Even though you have a financial incident potentially in what it went-- OK. And I think you can vote on those people. I don't think that there's a conflict in actually voting on the people you nominate even though you're nominating to a committee that may be providing funding to a community organization that you're a board member of. Got it. I mean-- OK. And then let me make sure I understand correctly because I 'm out. I want to understand what I'm saying no to. So potentially, if I'm on a nonprofit, I'm involved in a nonprofit organization. You're a board member. Yeah. No, no. I'm not going to vote because I'm going to put on the black hat. So I-- whatever organization, United Way, let's say, I serve. I don't serve. I tell them, I don't want to serve so that I can vote in your interest. And if I'm on the board, I have to recuse myself. That's OK, right? Just making sure I understand the flow of it. OK. Yeah. If somebody's going to be on council with that kind of attitude, then I have a feeling that will come out sooner or later and probably won't be back. Very good. OK. Go ahead. I mean, I've been helping elected officials through these issues for over 20 years. And where I typically see something like this end up is definitely a conflict of interest on the officers and on the dues pay members, at least a disclosure. Some people join organizations for marketing purposes to create business relationships. And I've seen council members get in trouble where they're afraid not to vote one way or another because it might affect some contract that personally I have from an arm's length position. And I would just kind of urge the council to look at this-- that these types of provisions aren't always punitive. Sometimes they're protective. Because there really is a bright line that these are the rules that we're bound to disclose. Either the way the process has worked with the city and the purpose in something like this is really to make somebody think, as Council Member H utsbush says, it really relies on self-reporting. And it's always going to rely on self-reporting no matter how tight this ordinance is. But there's also an aspect of it to protecting the city council members as well. And so I would just urge that-- I don't think that it's always punitive or how could this be used against me. I think on the flip side, it's a way of really preserving, making very clear to the public what the rules are that we're adhering to and making sure that we're trying to protect the people that are giving up so much time as well. So there's a balance there. And I just think that that's important to keep in perspective. So you're saying, from what your experience has been, conflict of interest if you're on the board. Yes. But if you're a due paying member, if you're a member-- Disclosure. Just disclosure. Right. And that's it. I mean, I'm OK with that. I mean, I'm fine with that. OK. I think we have a consensus on that. I know you-- I think you have a different-- yeah, OK. But it seems like we have a consensus at least to move that forward in the drafting. OK. We'll go through a couple more slides or maybe one, and then we'll take a quick break. Sounds good. We'll probably finish up conflict of interest before we do that. The next issue is the one that I know Councilman Hudspeth brought up earlier, and that is, to what degree are we going to apply these prohibitions on conflicts to relatives of our city officials? And I gave you what the current Texas statutory limits are, second degree by affinity or third degree by consanguinity, letter of adoption. Could you just give an example of each one of those? Sure. Going by third degree by consanguinity, I am related to my parents by one degree. And my sister is also related to my parents by one degree. Right. Therefore, my sister and I are related by two degrees, which means I am related to my nephew by three degrees. So to count the number of degrees, you're literally counting the steps in between the human beings. I am related to my grandparents if they were alive by two degrees, one step to my dad, second step to my grandfather. So that's how you count these steps. And that's consanguinity, the example you gave, is that correct? Yes. And the same method of counting would go for affinity, which means marriage. So give a description of that, please. I would be related to my brother-in-law by two degrees, one degree to my parents and another degree to my sister. So my sister's conflicts are also her husband's conflicts, my brother-in-law's. So by affinity, my wife is first degree. Yes. Brother-in-law is second degree. Yes. Mother-in-law is? That would be third. Would be third degree? Yes. Yes. Councilmember Briggs? So third degree would be in-laws, like say, so just example , the city has been doing business or contracts with an architecture firm for the fire stations since before I got on council. When I got on council, I started recusing myself because my sister-in-law's father is part owner in that. So that would, is that third degree? Yes. Yes. So I think, yes, third degree or fourth degree. So you want to go to third degree for affinity also? Well, I mean, that's just personally what I have done because that's, it's an appearance of a conflict. So I'm just trying to figure that out. I'm okay with third degree. For both of them? One second and one third under state law. Well, for me, it's a familiar relationship, I think, if it 's an appearance of a conflict. So I'm always going to go to the extreme there. I'm okay with using the state guidelines. I think that's good. Yes, Donna. I'm not tracking exactly. So the state guideline is second degree by affinity and third degree by consanguinity. Yes. And so we have the option of saying, okay, third degree by affinity. I think for purposes of your ordinance, you can be more strict than state law or less strict on how you want to extend these prohibitions. And essentially the third degree by affinity would extend to a brother-in-law situation or a sister-in-law situation? Yes. That's the only way a sister or brother-in-law would be covered? Yes. Okay. I'd be in favor of a third degree of affinity. You said that's the only way a brother-in-law would be covered. I thought you said brother-in-law and sister. Sister would be covered. Sister would be covered. I'm sorry. The only way your in-laws would be covered is through a third degree of affinity, if I'm understanding it correctly. And that stops at if you have your brother or sister, it's their husband or wife. If it's their father or mother of the brother-in-law, that 's the fourth and that's -- Right. Okay. All right. Okay. Who else? Yes. What did you say? I'm sorry, Don. Yeah. I'm good with a third degree on both. Okay. Yeah. I'm just playing with you. Good. All right. Yes. I'm good with both, but how do we -- I mean, I see my family three times a year. I have no idea who they're working for, what they're invested in, what boards they're on, or any of that kind of thing. How do you -- Good. Good question. That if all of a sudden you didn't realize that your brother-in-law was on a United Way Board, you know, are you now in trouble and then going to get an ethics violation? You need to talk more at Christmas. I want to hear, Alan, what are your thoughts on that? One way some cities try to address that is, of course, it's a knowing violation. Okay. Which, you know, we know gets into good luck proving or dis proving that. If you get into some sort of dispute, but it's usually addressed by being a knowing violation. Okay. Gerard? I just want to make sure I'm tracking with everything because I get lost sometimes. So the slide before, if you're an officer, we're deciding we want you to memorize the bylaws of an organization. And then the next slide, this instance, we're saying -- How about this slide? Yes. Okay. So it's easier to track your family, but we'll let that go, you know. Anyway, I'm just -- I'm making sure this one, based on his suggestion, it's a knowing violation. But the other, you're encumbered with memorizing the organization's bylaws to make sure you understand the hierarchy and how it's leveled and knowing your voting interests. I just think that's -- again, I'm trying to get to where we can enforce everything. Everything 100%. And that this -- if we don't enforce the fact that you don 't know your family or you don't know what they're into, then that's fine. Then we should -- I think that should be equally applied across so that it's equally enforceable and you don't -- I mean, that's just a -- again, you put on your black hat, which then all of a sudden, it's like, I didn't know. Well, and I hear what you're saying. I guess to me the difference is the slide before where we said if you were on a board of a director of a nonprofit. Now we used the assumption that, you know, you are a fiduci ary of that board. Most of the time, if you're appointed -- in fact, I would almost say all the time you're going to be a fiduciary. So as far as memorizing all their bylaws and all that, I think it's simply that bright letter rule that says if you are on the board as an officer , a board member who goes and votes, then that might be a conflict here, which is pretty much easier to know. You either know you're on the board or you don't. I mean, you're either on it or you're not. Here I think what Councilmember Ryan brought up is, you know, that third degree of consanguinity can get pretty far out there depending on how big your family is and those kind of things. And if you're estranged or if you don't have that much contact with them, you won't know all those things. So it's different to me than if you're yes or no. You're on the board or you're not. Because this is much more elusive. So I'm okay with the knowing aspect of this, whatever that means, because if not, it's a strict liability issue. And I don't think that that would be very productive. So are you still okay with this one? Third? Third? I'm fine with it. My point is only to point out inconsistencies and enforcement, because that's where we get, right? We're making this so that at some point we're going to have to enforce it. And I don't know that we can stand behind the pace we're going in some levels. And I think it opens the door for stuff. So I'm just making sure I'm just pointing out areas of concern in advance so I have a nice clean record. Yes. All right. Appreciate that. Thank you. So I think what I'm hearing is to change the second degree of affinity to the third degree of affinity. Okay. And in the nepotism rule, isn't it second or third of affinity? Because I know just as an example, my brother's daughter, that's niece, right? Is that right? Yeah. Okay. It goes to show you. See, look at that. I have no knowledge of how to label. I know she had thought about becoming a Denton police officer, but she couldn't because I'm mayor. And so I think that would be the second degree of affinity. Is that right? If it's my third. Okay. So here we have the third. Yeah. Okay. So I'm okay with the third. Okay. Yeah. So the final one, if there's consensus on this one, we can go to a break. The typical rule is that if you have a conflict of interest as it's been defined, there's two steps required. Number one is disclosure. That's the transparency aspect of it. You're filing an affidavit with the city secretary or whome ver declaring the nature of your relationship to this corporation, this nonprofit, this person. That takes the transaction into the open. The second part is abstention. You are not going to be discussing it at the dais when the vote comes up. Under state law, if there's a majority of the governing body that is filing an affidavit for whatever reason, then the vote gets to go forward because if a majority has a conflict of interest, then no one has a conflict of interest to the point of precluding voting. And the purpose of that is obviously trying to prevent paralyzing a governing body from taking action. Some of the cities that I've given you examples of today go beyond just discussing what's happening at the dais, beyond addressing what happens at the dais because that's the obvious question. Okay, I'm not going to vote about it because my family owns this piece of property, but I'm going to be in the city manager's office every day brow -beating him or the planning director or whomever. I'm going to be lobbying behind the scenes because my family owns the land. And so people are trying to discern, is that a violation of the statute or not? Well, some cities have tried to avoid that by explaining how far that prohibition goes. You're not discussing it with any decision makers, any department heads, any city boards or commissions that have authority over that item. And so I assume you want these two things, disclosure and abstention. Is that a fair assumption? Yeah, and I think Dalton. What our practice has been when we have a conflict, we not only abstain from the vote, we abstain from the discussion, we remove ourselves from the room during the discussion so that there's no indication that we're trying to influence it. We also, as far as I know, I think the practice is we abst ain from discussion or lobbying our colleagues and I think that we abstain from lobbying staff in terms of whatever the staff is going to present. I think that when we talk about a conflict of interest where we abstain, that it ought to have all of those elements of abstention. I think that's a very commendable practice. And so the question is that a practice you want to codify? I think we ought to codify that practice. Okay. The only question I have is -- excuse me. I should never eat peanuts before I go to talk. So this is applying to me. I can't and wouldn't have those conversations. But let's say, for instance, if I have a project that I've hired a consultant to walk it through the process, whatever it is, zoning, whatever you want to call it. Or I'm part of an organization that does that. Let's be specific so we can understand exactly how this works. So I can't talk to those people. Does that mean that nobody can advocate for the project because I'm involved in it? How would you even get anything done? So that's not what I'm hearing. But I want to put that out there so we have a clear understanding of what I'm hearing is I or anyone here who's got something like this, you've got a conflict, you have to stand down from talking to anyone about whatever it is that's coming before council, not just at the vote, but anybody who has their fingers touch that project staff wise. That's us personally. But if you have a project, you typically aren't doing that anyway. You've got other people who are doing that. So I'm thinking that's okay because you do have to somehow move it forward. But yet if people know, then -- and I'm not advocating for that. So I bring it up just to make sure we have clarity of what we're really talking about as far as the degree or the level of this stand down. The easy part is the standing down of me or whoever on this council or on council to not talk about it. But if I've got XYZ who's an engineer and we're trying to do a rezoning and they're having to figure out all these things to go through the rez oning application, surely they must be able to talk about it because otherwise you would be basically precluded from doing any projects like that as a sitting council member if you didn't have the ability to just go through the normal course of the project. So does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. All right. So go ahead. And I think we should not create an ethics ordinance that prohibits council members from conducting business within the City of Denton. That would be crazy. People have to be able to conduct business if they desire to. I don't think that we should create a situation where it really says if you do business in the City of Denton, if you run a business and you need a CO , you can't be on council. That would be wrong. Okay. All right. Any other comments on that? It sounds like everybody's okay with what Councilmember Gregory said. We certainly want disclosure, we want to abstain you, but we want to stand down to broaden that. We want to stand down that you cannot discuss it with anyone who's in the decision-making process with staff. Yes. And then Keely, go ahead. Just a clarifying question for disclosure and abstention. So if you have and meet the issues of the annual income, you will or your own board member, you will abstain. You will not discuss anything. But as the city manager said, if you are a due paying member of something or you qualify, you have less than the amount of the annual income, say you are at $998, then you will disclose, but you will still participate. Is that what I'm hearing? If you have an interest, you will disclose, but if you go past those amounts or thresholds, you will abstain. I don't know that that's where we are. Okay. Absent just some other, you know, the state's financial disclosure forms or any City of Denton financial disclosure forms say to be a candidate for office that you choose to adopt in addition to what you already have. If they are under the threshold that was already established, they would not have an extra duty to file that affidavit and would not have a duty to abstain. I think that's where we are at this point. So when you when you abstain and when you remove yourself from a conversation, vote, closed session, everything on an item, do you have to continue to do that? We had a situation where somebody decided that once they had done all that to come back into the conversation afterwards. Is that is that allowed or are not? I think if you have a conflict as you've defined it, you follow your affidavit, then you you abstain from those deliberations while the matter is pending before the city. If there's no active application or contract pending before the city, then I think you'd be free to discuss whatever comes up. Is that what you're asking? Usually the affidavit is good in perpetuity. You don't have to refile the affidavit each and every time a permit or a contract comes up. It's on file. It's there for the public to see. You have a duty to stop talking about it whenever that board that entity is seeking something from City Hall. But you should you should remain with your abstention until that item is complete and and over. Yes, as long as there's there's a live application pending, your duty to abstain would be there. Thank you. I think to build upon to build upon what Councilmember Br iggs is getting at is if a council member did have the conflict or another official in the city and they somehow cured it or they disclosed it they abstained from the initial proceed from the beginning and then somehow cures it later during that process. Do they still remain unable to participate or do they now can they jump back into the discussion and vote? I think that's where Councilmember Briggs is going. I've seen ethics ordinances that would say that if you've had you know the stock or whatnot within that fiscal year or within that calendar year that's what triggers the scope of the prohibition. But I don't think that necessarily has to be the case. If they've cured the probation by conveying the property or divesting themselves of the stock I think at that point in time they're free to participate because the conflict's gone. Well to give an example under our current rules it's 10% of your income and I was working part time for the University of North Texas teaching and the pay was less than 10% of my income, total income, our family income or my income. So I did not abstain from the discussions we were in closed session because of a lawsuit. My wife retired and she started teaching part time for UNT and then it became more than 10% of our income when it was both of us. So I abstained and then we both quit. Now none of our income is coming and I stopped abstaining and I started sitting in on any discussions regarding UNT. So there are cases where when there is a conflict you abst ain when there's not a conflict anymore you don't abstain. There's nothing illegal or unethical about that is there? Not that I'm aware of. I don't know where the source of that continuing probation would come from. Right. John, go ahead. Yeah, I think it's important that we have a clear definition of lobbying. If you're doing a project and you're, as the mayor was talking about, if he goes and talks to staff about, okay, what are the requirements? I want to rezone this for this. Is he putting undue influence into that? So I think a clear definition of that. The other thing we need to address is cross boards. Is a person who abstains on P and Z because it's a matter that they had a conflict, are they allowed to talk in front of council when it comes before council or ZBA, if they abstain there can they talk here? Or on the reverse side you've got an issue that comes before council that didn't go through P and Z but you have a conflict with that P and Z member and that P and Z member is now talking to council. Those are a couple of different cross board issues to think about. Let me take those. I can only remember them from the last one to the first one so you'll have to remind me. I think I've seen where if you were, you cannot speak before the board in which you were on. But I would struggle with if somebody had a conflict at P and Z because that's their level of authority to vote at that and they abstain. I mean to say that they can't come before the council to advocate for a project they have would almost seem like I'm denying them their ability as a member of the public, not as a P and Z member but as a member of the public. Just like what I think on council and that may be as a council member because you have it's more is it called legislative authority? Your decisions are binding. Is that what it's called? Legislative authority. So obviously a council member couldn't I don't think -- well, maybe throw it out. So what you're saying, can a council member come if they've abstained and talk to the council about their project as a member of the public during a public hearing? In other words, are you going to preclude a council member from speaking during a public hearing in favor of their project at a public hearing if they've abstained and filed out all the necessary paperwork and has stood down from talking to staff or anything like that? Can they even advocate for something -- that's the question . No, I'm going the council member who abstains cannot discuss with council. But if that council member -- can that council member go before P and Z when the project is at the P and Z level or does that abstention extend to the lower level? I'm going to ask our astute expert here what he has seen. What I think the state law was anticipated to do is to keep a council member who has a conflict from discussing it at the dais and voting at the dais. That's what I think they were intending to do. I don't think it intended to go beyond that. In reality, you saw what some people will do, which is discuss it behind the scenes with the city manager, discuss it behind the scenes with the city council, behind the scenes with P and Z. And so some cities have taken it broader, really curtailing the ability of a city official, however broadly that's defined, to advocate on even their own behalf or on the behalf of their financial interests, their nonprofit interests, their family interests. That's where you have to decide how tightly you want this and at what point is it either a ridiculous result. It has the result of paralyzing a board or it has the result of deterring otherwise civically engaged people from becoming city officials. And this conversation is going beyond just the conflict of interest part into a later section also, which is the ability of city officials to represent themselves or other people before city boards and commissions. Is that where this discussion we're talking about is going to be more applicable in what you're saying is later you've got another section. We got another section today meant to address that. Yeah, because we've got 37, 36 slides and we're on slide eight. So I'm hoping that this has been sort of the part. I believe so. So let's let's defer that till then, because I think it seems like that's the more appropriate place to discuss these parameters. Yes. Councilmember Ryan had brought up, is that correct? I think so. I think we'll get to that in this next part. All right. So what I'm hearing then to sum it up is that it seems like there's a consensus that if you have a conflict, you have to disclose and you have to abstain at the voting at the dais or discussing at the dais. Furthermore, that also includes standing down, talking to staff or anyone on city staff that anyone on city staff that has a some kind of touch point with this with this project with the project. Now what I want to understand for clarity though is I think Alan, you had said while there's something pending. All right. In other words, somebody submitted an application for rez oning or submitted an application for something you've got some interest in it. You've got to stand down completely. Well, let's say there is no application pending. Let's say this is just in your kind of thought process of I 'm not sure what I want to do, but I need to ask some questions to determine what the next course of action is. So you know, somebody's got a rezoning that they're thinking about. They haven't filed it. They haven't done anything. And to get information to understand what you need from what I heard you say, you can have these informal conversations because nothing's pending yet. And I'm saying that I think we need to be real careful that somehow there's got to be some time frame that says you can't if you've got a drop dead date of, you know, June 1st, we made an application for a project. Looking back in time, does that mean I could have conversations with staff and the city manager informally all the way up until I file it, which would basically have the same effect of -- so somehow I don't think we should be talking to people even prior to that or to what degree prior to that. I mean, if it's a year or two, I mean, you're not going to have much influence. You might not even be on council. >> I understand what you're saying. I don't think that line exists right now. If we want to do that, to have that, I don't know, blackout period or whatever it would be called, we can establish that. >> Have you found that -- do most cities who have this stand down once the formal process has been engaged with the city, do you find any that have that prior to that blackout time, they use that as sort of the beginning point of this is the stand down period begins right here. When you file, when you submit some formal process that's going to require city action. >> I don't even think they define it that narrowly. I think that's just been the effect. That's been the interpretation. >> Okay. All right. Okay. Well, I'm okay with what we've discussed. I mean, if as far as when you file it or when you engage in that formal process of seeking something from the city, you need to stand down. Otherwise, it's going to be impossible. I don't even know how you do that. Is everybody okay with where we are on that? Okay. All right. I see a lot of heads nodding. Okay. All right. So does that is that helpful? Does that give you the direction? >> I think it helps move it forward and I can compile some language based on that. >> Okay. >> You can go ahead and take a 10 minute break. >> Yeah, let's take a 10 minute break. All right. Back in session for this meeting of the Dent City Council on Saturday, January 27, 2018. It is 11 o'clock. We started at 9 o'clock. 36 slides. We've gone through eight. So we're moving quick. We're going we're moving through them. Mayor Council, I think you've tackled the hardest part of today's agenda. So maybe this next part will go faster. We're now on the issue of Section 2 GIFs and the state law ban on GIFs. Generally speaking, state law prohibits public officials such as city council members from accepting GIFs that exceed $50 in value. And so do you want to defer to state law or do you want your ordinance to also get into the topic of GIFs? That's the first question. >> Just because I know that and this may be in another slide. So if it is, let me know. That there's if you're attending an event, like if you're invited to something and it is if it exceeds that, I don't know what I don't go to football games. You get tickets to the football game or you get invited to a suite. And that exceeds $50 that if I remember correctly, there's a rule that the person who invited you has to be there. >> That's right. >> And if they're there, then does this not apply or you're able to go I mean is there any correlation to that or is that something totally different? >> There is a correlation. They're often kind of lumped in together when you look at city ethics ordinances. That's why the samples I provide you sort of capture everything we'll do over these next couple slides. There's GIFs which when I'm talking about it in today's context, I'm talking about something tangible, something you can touch, a thing, a service, a present, those sorts of things. We also are going to get into the subjects of honorarium, you know, compensation for some sort of speaking engagement. There's the issue of travel and travel related expenses that we'll cover. And then there's you know, entertainment, which you know, going to a luxury skybox in Arlington to watch the Cowboys might cover multiple ones of these categories all at the same time. So while state law says you can't accept a gift, whether it 's a tangible thing or a service, if it's more than 50 bucks, there is no such limit on travel and entertainment if the host is accompanying you. So if a limousine is going to pick us all up here at 12 o' clock sharp and drive us over to a luxury box at a stadium where there'll be food and drink and a little swag bag for us to take with us, well, the only real limit on the dollar amount is on the swag bag. The content should not exceed $50. But the food, the drink, the watching the professional athletes play, that is not only there's no cash limit to that value limit, there's also no reporting requirement under state law if our host is there. And so if that's a social function, it's not an ethics concern at all for most people. If the host is a vendor of the city of Dentons, then I think some citizens might be concerned about that. And the fact that it's legal under state law may not give them any comfort. They would want some limits here in our own ethics ordinance. So so that I don't derail us and we can stay on the way you 've got it organized. So what you've just discussed, we're going to be talking about later on in the slide. This is just the gifts, the $50, the tangible gifts that you're talking about. And then we'll discuss the other ones as further in the presentation. Yes, you know, I operate out of a law firm. I am a for profit venture. I work for cities exclusively. So these things come up with me on a regular basis. So when I have a client come Christmas, they're going to receive a box of chocolate covered almonds. True story. The box that the city gives is not addressed to any one person. It's addressed to the city. I'm trying to avoid someone having to throw away a box of chocolate. Also the box of chocolate is less than $50. So even if the mayor says, wow, this is fantastic. I'm taking this home. They're not violating the state ethics rule. Yet I know some city attorneys who say that's fantastic, Alan. I don't care how much the chocolate is worth. I'm not accepting it because of my office's ethical position, but you'll be glad to know the kids down at the Boys and Girls Club really enjoyed it. And if you even look at state law, it'll tell you that if you receive a prohibited gift, it is okay if you turn around and give that gift to a nonprofit corporation or to a government entity, including the city. So the state law is designed to try to prohibit gifts to an individual public official. And the question is, what do we want to do in Denton? You could defer to state law if you think it provides adequate protections. We can mirror it or we can try to be more strict than state law, including another question that's coming up. If you allow gifts, you're going to regulate gifts. Is there need to be a lower dollar amount? And is there a cumulative annual amount? And are you also going to make it okay to take those prohibited gifts and just give them to a nonprofit or give them to the city as a whole? I guess my question kind of goes in there with the annual amount because I'm wondering about the state law on gifts. It's $50. Is that $50 per person? Is there a per contract? Per how does that work? Or is it like, can one person give you like $150 gifts as long as $50 is the maximum? It's a single gift limit of $50. Right. If you look at some of the city ordinances, the samples I provided, they'll say $50 is the limit, but no more than $100 a year cumulative or some other number so that to avoid the scenario you just described. Right. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem? Am I correct in understanding that state law prohibits elected officials from receiving gifts of over $50, but it doesn't prohibit vendors from giving gifts of over $50? Correct. Okay. So in our- If you're, I'm sorry to interrupt you. One thing I forgot I should mention is if you're a registered lobbyist under state law, then you have to report the gifts you give, but you're allowed to give them. Okay. So it's basically a one way street in terms of liability. The liability only falls on the elected official. Yes. And is it possible in our ordinance to expand it so that the liability is a two way street? Yes. We could put in our ordinance that it's prohibited for a vendor or an aspiring vendor to give a gift. Okay. So I would definitely like to see that. And then my third, my next question would be what if the vendor circumvents the council members altogether and gives a gift to an employee? At this point, I'm assuming that these rules would be applicable to employees also and not just to the electeds. Okay. So following up on the employee gift, what happens if a vendor violates a gift ordinance? So let's say a vendor gives a gift to an employee and that 's unlawful under our ordinance. What authority would we have to prosecute or to enforce, I mean, what are our options? I think an ethics complaint could be filed against the vendor before your board of ethics and they would have to go through that process. I think we could also look at addressing it from the procurement angle. For some of the more egregious violations, I've seen ethics ordinances that say a vendor that violates these rules, ABC123, the contract that they have is voidable, which is a pretty stiff penalty. Another one is a vendor with a history of these violations is ineligible to be considered for city contracts for a period of six months or 12 months or two years or something like that. And so I think we have a range of options. The first and the easiest is they have ethics complaints against them filed before our board. Okay. So I would be in favor of sticking with the $50 amount, including vendors in that restriction, including employees in that restriction, and additionally providing a contract void provision if a vendor is found to have violated that. Okay. Did you want to say, I thought you, okay, I thought you, okay. Go ahead. So here's my concern on that. Imagine that it's a vendor that is, we have a number that are single source. It's proprietary software. And because of all the systems that we have, it's the only software that works with whatever thing that we have. So there's a new sales rep or something like that that doesn't know and provides a gift over $50, offers it, not realizing that it's against the rules. The employee doesn't take it, but the employee has an obligation to report. And now our rules say, oh, well, you offered a gift for $65 and we're now going to cancel the contract with you. You're a single source. And now it's going to cost the city maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars to go out and buy a whole new system for software or whatever because of the single source operation. That seems like a, if part of our job here is to try to protect the interest of the city, we're not protecting the interest of the city if we have a rule that is so punitive to a vendor that it actually punishes the city. So I would not be in favor of putting those kinds of rules in place for the vendors. Putting those rules into place for our staff members and for council should be sufficient to stem that problem. So clarification on that, Councilmember Gregory. So what you're saying is that the $50 state limit as far as for council members, public officials and employees, you're okay with that, but to extend that to vendors in any shape form or fashion is something that you're struggling, you're opposed to. I'm opposed to it. Okay. I think it has a potential of doing damage to the city more than it does of helping the city. I think the single source vendor brings up a good point. I would be okay with exempting single source vendors from any type of avoidable contract and just leaving it to contracts that go out for a bid with multiple vendors. Does that change your position? I'm not sure because what if it's a vendor is still, it's some salesperson that doesn't know the rule. The city staff has been trained in their orientation training and in the policy handbook as has the council, but a contractor is low bid and is low bid by thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars according to the deal. And now that contract has become void and we have to go to the next vendor and it's still putting the city in a position of having to pay more money to get the same service that we were getting at a better price. Let me make a -- because you are using two different words. You're using voidable. You're using void. I think what Mayor Pro Tem is saying is that the contract may be voidable, but that's upon an action from -- in other words, the council would have to vote on that. Whereas if you say it's void, that means it's done. I mean, there's no other action that needs to be taken. And so I think what Mayor Pro Tem is saying is -- and I'm not saying that to convince you to make a change of mind, I just want to make sure we have a clarification of the terminology being used. So voidable means that you could void it or you could decide not to, which in the deliberations, all these points that you're bringing up would be part of that discussion in making that decision. So I just point that out just to make sure we have an understanding of the different terminology. Yes. >> I'd be in favor of that probably with the step system that the first offense to the vendor would be a warning. The second offense would be six months suspension. Third offense, you know, a year suspension. The fourth just takes them off the table altogether. >> Okay. I can build something like that into the ordinance. Do we want -- now we're at the point I think Ms. Briggs was getting to about an annual maximum. Is there an annual maximum that you would like to see? >> One million -- no, I'm just kidding. >> Okay. >> No, I'm just teasing. Yes, I'm sorry. >> 365 times 50 years. >> No, yes. Yes. >> Can you help me understand where we just left? I didn't know where -- can you summarize that again? >> Yeah. I think we might have -- yeah. In essence, what I think -- go ahead, Alan. When you said, okay, I understand, we'll put language in, what do you think was the consensus of the council as you were -- >> The restriction on gifts is going to apply not just to elected officials and boards but also to employees. The prohibition on giving prohibited gifts is going to apply to our vendors. They will be subject to our ordinance including complaints for ethics violations. If there is a large infraction of this or repeated inf raction, there will be steps for their contract to be reviewed and that contract could be determined to be voidable by the city council if there's a repeat offender and factors that the council will consider when doing that is whether or not this appears to have been a knowing violation or a non-knowing violation and is this a sole source vendor or would voiding this contract put the city in financial harm? And if so, then maybe the council would want to find some other way to bring our code of ethics to the vendor's attention versus automatically vo iding their contract. >> There's a lot in there that I'm not in line with but I get it. But the one point that I will sell is the wiggle room that 's in there. I'm not for that at all. Because either you're going to enforce it every time. This goes back to my point. Because now we get selective, right? Why didn't we void Bob's company and not John's company? It gets to where it just opens the door for ambiguity. So it's either -- and I've been consistent with that. It needs to apply to everyone every time. Or it doesn't. Because if you can't enforce it every time, it opens a door for people to start challenging that logic and you're trying to put a fine point on stuff that I don't think you can. So for me, if the language is always, if always it's reviewed and always on the second review, the contract is always voided but for sole source, then I'm in. But if it's will, maybe, shall, might, I don't think that's right. I don't think it is even handed. So that's my thought. >> So I'm in favor of most of that except the part I have issue with is the repeat effect. I would like for the option for it to be avoidable for the first time offender if possible going through all the proper channels because there's some vendors that never come back to the city that may feel like they have a free pass to do this if they 're not going to come back again. >> Okay. >> I mean -- >> Okay. Yes. >> My question is -- so help me understand in the scenario that was laid out, if the contract -- if they don't have a contract, are they prec luded from -- is a punitive measure that you don't get to -- so if you're trying to get a bid or you're trying -- you're a prospective vendor and you break the rule, what is the pun itive measure for that given this scenario that he outlined? Because I didn't hear that. >> Mayor Pro Tem may have some -- >> Well, I would say that a potential vendor would have to be subject to our rules as well because the line of when somebody becomes a vendor and isn 't a vendor is, as I think all of us know, it's very hazy. So I think we have no choice but to apply it to potential vendors as well. >> Right. But what does that look like? So you're saying -- I get it that it applies to them, but if they don't have a contract and they don't win the award but they broke the rule, do you say in the future you can't bid or in the future it's a mark against your application? What does that look like if they don't win the bid but they break the rule? >> If I could maybe help out a little bit here. We've got an informal policy right now with the directors, no gifts, period. I just think it's the safest thing. My mantra on that is just is that $75 gift really being worth being on the front page of the newspaper. And so we basically just stop the gifts. What happens just naturally -- I know that we want to take a really hard tone with the vendors, but I can tell you that word will get out fast. The employees welcome the clarity. They welcome the fact that they know what the rules are, the vendors are communicated with very quickly about that. And we have had a few cases. We've tightened up the language in our purchasing manual. I think this gets to Councilmember Hutzpah's concern. Basically any contacts during any processes, you're out. And we've issued warning letters to a couple of people. I personally let them know and they've called my office or whatever that another contact and you're out. And it really -- word gets around very fast that that's how we're operating. I think we can -- if you want to formalize it, if there needs to be a warning letter, that's fine. But it really is going to become -- it becomes self-pol icing very quick. And the employees get the word out very quickly. So it's just a practical example of sort of how we've been operating anyway. I welcome the formalness of it. I think it makes everybody's life easier that there's that additional clarity from the Council. But it really is one of those things that becomes self-pol icing very fast. >> Okay. So other than -- I mean, Alan expressed some direction. Keely, you had some modification that it's not about a repeat offender as far as what may happen. But -- and, Gerard, does that help you with -- I mean -- >> Yes. That clears it up. I'd like that included, that language somehow included that something that at least addresses it -- maybe it's in the definition, maybe it's in the -- maybe it's a point underneath. But I think it's just important to have that at least touched upon that -- because not everyone has a contract. And if I subvert the rules on the one that I'm not going to get, but it puts me in line for one that I'm going to get later, then you've not addressed that through this -- how it's laid out currently. >> Okay. All right. Okay. So on this one, if the government -- is there any annual maximum? So this is just a distributive discussion. What's the annual maximum? >> I'm in favor of an annual maximum of $50. >> Is that from the same person or $50 total? In other words, if you have two or three different vendors or whoever -- I don't even know who it would be. I mean, sometimes nonprofits give you things. Are you saying $50 from the same source or $50 total regardless of the source? >> Okay. All right. Who else? Anybody else? >> I think that that's putting a little too strong because you don't know -- I mean, if you get a gift from one place and it's worth $5, how do you put the value on that if you put that $50? It's easy to say one gift, $50, that's the maximum. But to try and figure out if you got 10 gifts, were they all $5? How do you set that up to use an accumulative on that? I think maybe two gifts per vendor or per -- two gifts from one place in a year would be a better way to go about it. >> I have a question about a gift. Say like the Denton Black Film Festival gives us tickets. Is that considered a gift from that festival to go and use the ticket? I mean, would that count? Do we add that face value? Just real life situation here. >> Yeah. >> I think the additional piece of information now is that the city also helps fund the Black Film Festival. So it's a good -- it's an interesting question because you 've got -- you're funding this nonprofit organization and they're also in turn offering tickets as well. I guess they could anyway. So it's an interesting scenario. >> I think to answer your question, yes, that would count unless you created exceptions. And some of the cities that get into this area of regulation have a list of exceptions. I think I gave you an example of El Paso that accepted a ticket or admission pass regardless of face value to an event sponsored or cofunded by the city . So that example that you gave wipes that off the consideration. >> Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we've got -- Keely, you're saying you only want one gift per person outside of this exception we just created. But not per person but one gift total, $50. >> Well, I don't get offered a lot of gifts. So I mean, I don't really see this. >> You don't? >> No. >> Yeah, but you got offered tickets to the Black Film Festival. I didn't. And so, John, you're saying so many per -- wow, what happens on a Saturday? Wow. >> So, you know, either a one or two per vendor per year or per entity per year to you. Because, again, you go to a bunch of Christmas parties and they all give you Christmas ornaments. And, you know, if you go to 10 parties, you've got your $50 maxed out right there. And it's just to try and put a $50 overall for the whole year that's all any one person can accept is not going to -- you know, it's tough to keep up with that. Because all of a sudden you've got that 11th ornament and now you're in violation of the ethics code. >> Okay. Anybody else? Comments? >> Well, let me ask -- >> Oh, okay. I'm going to go over here. Mayor Pro Tem, don't come to you, Mr. Pro Tem. You know, John, you bring up a good point, but then how do you keep track of all -- it's all a tracking issue. So if you're only taking $50 or $100 per vendor, you still have to keep track of all of the different vendor gifts that you're getting. Unless you're just saying that there's no dollar limit to gifts that you get per year. >> No, I'm saying the accumulative dollar limit, trying to put that together is -- >> You're still tracking, though. You're going to count the 11 ornaments or you're going to count 11 vendors is what I'm saying. But each one of them gave you a $5 gift, none of which is over the $50 maximum. >> Okay. So I go back to your question. How do you determine what a $5 gift is versus a $10 or $50 gift? >> That becomes a secondary issue. In most places, understand the $50 maximum. And so unless it's obvious -- I mean, if you get a $65 gift card to, you know, sports authority or something, you know it's over $50. But most of the time you can look at the gift and they know that they're supposed to spend under the $50. >> So I would say that I'm in favor of a flat actual dollar restriction, not based on vendors, just based on the yearly amount. I think it's easier that way. I don't -- I mean, I don't get any gifts, so I'm okay with the $50. I mean, I guess if people are getting a bunch of gifts, then they might not be okay with it. >> Okay. Councilman Hussbuss? >> Man, that's leading, though. It's like, hey, if you're advocating for more than $50, oh, you're a receiver. >> You're on the page. >> Yeah, you're on the page. >> I don't either, but -- >> And I paid for my tickets. So I don't have any of those problems because I want to invest in the local organizations. And you know what I mean? It just paints a terrible picture the other side of that. Like, you didn't buy yours? Anyway, my thought is I don't -- I think a total number is accurate. I think a total number is accurate. I think a total number is accurate. I think a total number is accurate. I think a total number is accurate. I think a total number is accurate. I think a total number is accurate. I think 50 is too low. And I need some clarity in the definitions because we went both ways. We went actual tangible gifts and then value of tickets. We never nailed that down unless I missed it. So give me -- where are we on that? Is it tickets to a football game? That's a face value attributed to that? Or is it, you know, a nice cool Mont Blanc pin and what that sells for? I mean, what -- >> Sure. >> And so the food beverages at the game. And that gets -- again, it really -- I want to be just as ethical as the next person. I really do. But at the end of the day, it really is a challenge because if you're worried about the wrong thing, you miss the obvious. Because I can say, hey, give me a ticket for the GA section and I'll meet you in the suite. So now I'm claiming this ticket for three bucks to get into the game. And then I'm sitting in this palatial suite watching the game. I mean, it just really becomes what are we trying to do here? I mean, are we electing people that are ethical by their nature and just reinforcing that or are we trying to nail down everything? Like these microphones need to be nailed down just in case one of us steals one. You know, it's just -- what are we doing? And so my question is, I'll be able to give -- assign a number to it once I understand what we're talking about. >> Well, and I think in this conversation came up early on when we started talking about gifts. One is the actual tangible -- you used some term -- like a bag, a pin. You said Mont Blanc pin. Something that is not entertainment or an event or food because then there's other rules that apply to that. I mean, from what I understand, if you get invited to, let 's say, a Cowboys football suite from a vendor and you go and you're eating there, you get free parking, you do -- obviously that's going to -- that value is going to be over $50. But if the host is there, the person who is -- or the company or somebody is there representing the host is there with you, this $50 limit on a tangible gift except if they give you a goodie bag at the end, that's not applicable. Am I correct in that? >> Yes. >> Yeah, okay. >> You're correct. >> So the Mont Blanc pin is the $50 value. The entertainment, meals, those kind of things, doesn't seem like there's a value on that. The main rule is your host has to be there. Like if you got an invitation and you went to the football game and whoever gave you that invitation was not there and there was no -- nobody was there saying they represented the host, that's a violation. So I think what we're asking about is the gifts part, not necessarily the meals, entertainment, events. Is that what we're -- is that where we are? >> That's what we're on at this point, yes. >> So yes, go ahead. >> So then -- so I'd say I'll take the $50, but $50 per month, whatever that math is, and I'd put all out exclusion. If you're talking travel, anything that entails that, like if there's an airline, there's travel, anything like that I think automatically gets red flagged. But just local gifts, I would say $50 a month, whatever that math is. >> That's $600 a year. >> Yeah. >> Yes, go ahead. >> I don't know whether you mentioned it, but no cash. No cash gifts, period. >> Is that -- okay. I mean, that -- >> Yeah. >> It doesn't matter to me. You can give gift cards and things like that, but no cash. >> Yeah. Yes. >> You can give gift cards, but not cash? >> That's the way -- >> I'm not sure what the distinction is there, but -- >> Well, I don't know what this -- well, actually, as a realtor, I can't give over $50 to a client. >> Okay. >> Or, you know, trying to, you know -- I can give them a gift card, but I cannot give them cash. >> Oh, that's weird. >> Well -- >> Here's my question. I go to -- I don't get a lot of gifts, and I don't get a lot of tickets either. Maybe I could have one of yours if you're not using them. But I do go to conferences, and at conferences, oftentimes, some of the companies, like engineering companies, host receptions where there are free beverages, and there are heavy ordeurs. And that may be an engineering company that's a current vendor or that just does a lot of vending to various cities, and they're wanting to spread goodwill. I go to some of those, and the ordeurs are generally of such a nature that I don't go out and eat dinner afterwards, so I don't file a form to the city for that meal. So going to a reception like that, is that a violation? Is that a gift? >> Under state law, it falls under entertainment and meals, and as long as your host is there, there's no duty to report it, and there's no dollar limit. >> Okay. I'm just trying to clarify what it means. >> So we got to focus our discussion more on -- because I think we've gone over the gifts and all that, which we're going to go over again pretty heavily. So I'm hearing for this particular slide, there's been several kind of proposals or options. There's one that's $50 total. The other one was $100. Was that yours? What was yours? >> I didn't make a dollar. >> You didn't make a dollar, man. Gerard said, okay, you can't receive more than $600 worth of gifts, meaning tangible, a pie, a cake, whatever, a year. So let's try to find a consensus on something. No cash. I'm okay with the $600 because I don't get any gifts. The only thing I get is the thing at Christmas time from the fairgrounds at all the peanuts and pretzels and all those kind of things. So the number value doesn't matter. I don't mind that because I don't think we're going to get that. But let's face it, you still have to disclose it. These are things you have to -- that's the reason for it. You can't get them, but don't you still -- if you get something -- let's say it's $30. Do you have to disclose it? >> No. >> Okay. So is it over $50? >> You're not allowed to accept it over $50. >> So you don't have to disclose it if it's $49.99? >> That's right. >> If it's $50, you have to disclose it. >> That's right. >> No, you can't accept it. >> You can't accept it. >> You can't accept it. That was one of my other questions. Are you wanting to require people to disclose gifts? State law is no. You're not allowed to accept anything over $50. There's no annual limit. Obviously, I think if someone's in a decision-making process and they're receiving lots of $50 gifts, they need to stop worrying about ethics and start worrying about bribery and other more penal statutes, which do exist. And there is no dollar amount with those. It's taking gifts that are meant to influence the exercise of your official duties. Here I'm just wondering -- you all seem to want to regulate gifts. Can I put down $600 as a placeholder in terms of an annual limit? And then you all can give me some guidance in terms of whether or not you want people reporting all gifts, no matter how small? Or can we say that under $50 is de minimis and we don't need to create that kind of bureaucracy? >> Kaylee and then John, and then we're going to get some consensus on this slide and we're moving on. So go ahead. >> So I'm just going to go on the record in saying I think that accepting a $50 gift per month from a vendor is too much. But if that is the consensus of counsel, then I think it has to be disclosed. >> Okay. John? >> Well, and I think limiting the vendor to one -- limiting it to the vendor number of gifts per year, whether it's one gift per year or two gifts to the vendor, you know, what happens if there's somebody that does business with the city that I do business with elsewhere and they send me a gift to my business? Do I count that as a counsel gift? Do I count that -- if the city is also doing business with them, it could be looked at the other direction. So that's where I say one gift per year per vendor. Don't set the maximum because we all have talked about we don't get that many gifts to begin with. >> $600 to me as I've heard the conversation. Okay. Let me just take a breath here. We're really -- I mean, we're spending an hour talking about somebody who's giving us something that's worth less than $50 that we don't have to disclose. And so therefore we're trying to figure out what rules different than the state rules do we want to apply, if any, is what I'm hearing. I've heard one gift, $50, that's it, or less. That's all you get. So what do you -- Gerard, you said $600? >> Yeah. I just -- and the reason I came up with it, it's just something that's enforceable, right? I don't believe that -- I just don't want to trick people to fail in the ethics code. I think you should be -- it's reasonable because when we file our financial disclosures, anything under $50, you don't have to fill out. And I think it's -- on the expenditure side, it's $100, you know? And so I think $50 is just -- that's not even realistic to me. So I don't entertain anything between $50 and $600. >> Okay. >> But whatever that number is -- >> Let me throw this out there. >> I just wanted to add some reason to it versus just an arbitrary number. >> I'm going to say -- let me say -- I'm going to say a maximum number of $200 with it being limited to one gift. You can't have multiple gifts from a single source. >> Okay. >> In other words, if you've got four different people that maybe want to give you something in the course of something, that's fine. But I think Keely's point is well-made, and that is that, you know, if you had four coming from the same place, that could get a little -- I mean, I would be curious about that. That would not be good. >> Okay. >> So, I mean, we got to pick a number. We got to start somewhere. I'm saying 200, no more than 50 from one source in a year. This is a fiscal year look. And anybody got a real burning issue with that? >> I'm good with that. >> No cash? >> I'm good with that. >> Okay. All right. >> And if you do receive a gift that's prohibited, do you just reject it? Do you send it back? Or is it enough to send it to a government entity or a tax- exempt non-profit? >> I think they leave that at the election of the official, and they can choose from either one of those. >> Perfect. >> Yes. >> Honoraria. I mean, the message I'm taking away from that last discussion was that graft and corruption and gifts is not a deal in the City of Denton. And so that's good to hear. I'm also not that eager to craft a lot of complicated rules to deal with a problem that's not existing. This may be another one. I don't know if honoraria comes up. People are sometimes paid an honorarium, a speaker's fee. This gets very common, you know, in terms of our state legislature. Are they being invited to speak at a conference because they're really that cutting edge of a real estate agent? Are they being invited to speak at a conference because they're a state legislator on the committee that regulates the real estate industry? This is where this type of rule comes up. But if you're being paid to go and speak at a conference, to give a speech, to conduct training because of your profession, because of your educational background, that is allowed. If you are being paid to come and speak at an event because you are a City of Denton elected official or a City of Denton staff member, that's a problem under state law. Do you want to also prohibit that under your ethics code? Or defer to state law and leave it alone? >> And this is state law here? >> Yes. >> So what you just described with state law? >> Yes. >> I mean, because I'm okay with state law because it says you can't do it. Is that correct? Yeah. >> Some of these will look familiar because it's hard to parse out all of these, but travel, lodging from someone that's seeking to do business or is doing business with the city, are you going to cover that in your code? >> It's under $50. So they can take you all the way up to Tioga. >> So yes, you'll cover it. Dollar limit is $50. >> Okay. We've got a couple of questions on that. Go ahead. >> So there's a section on travel and then there's a section on entertainment. Let's say a fishing trip on the Columbia River, where would that fit in? Or a hunting trip, where would that fit in? >> I think it falls under either or both. I mean, there's a reason why most city ordinances lump them all together. I broke them out in separate questions just to force you to have the conversation. >> Okay. >> You know, if someone's just offering to pay your travel to a TML event and the TML conference is in Fort Worth next year, that's a pretty short distance. If it's in, you know, Houston or Corpus or somewhere else, that gets to be a little bit more pricey. >> So this is where I go back to the state rule. The state rule says that, let's say vendor A wants to go with me. They travel with me to my trip, my fishing trip. Does that mean that it's an allowed trip under state law from what I understand? But in our rules, we could say, well, that's not an allowed gift. >> That's right. >> Or, I mean, I'm calling it gift. We've just defined gift really clearly, but we could say that that's not allowed even with the vendor participating. >> That's right. If you're really close friends with a vendor, you usually like that person and you want to go trout fishing with them, you can. You must pay your own way. That could be City of Denton's rule. That is not the rule in the state of Texas. >> I would prefer that that would be City of Denton's rule that, you know, we're not giving vendors a pass because they're along for the hunting trip. >> Well, see, I'm confused at what you're saying because let's say there's a vendor and we are at some conference or something, and I love deep sea fishing. They love deep sea fishing. We go on the same trip. I pay my own way. Are you saying that you're prohibited from actually being on the boat with the vendor even if you're paying your own way? Or are you saying if the vendor's paid your way? >> I'm saying if the vendor's paying for anything on that trip, then it should be -- so you might pay your admission, but who's paying for the bait and all the other worms and whatever? I don't know what happens on fishing trips, okay? >> It's usually included in the price. >> Okay. Whatever. So anyway. >> Hopefully you catch fish. Yeah. >> What I'm trying to say is you shouldn't be able to avoid getting a very nice gift from a vendor just because you paid a $5 admission fee or whatever. If the total value of what is being provided is really more than just the admission. That's kind of what my concern is, is can you just work around this? I think it's the same concern as Gerard. I want it to be enforceable and not have a million looph oles. So I would prefer to see that, you know, if a vendor is with the person, that it still applies. >> That what applies? That's what I'm asking. >> That our rules still apply and our prohibitions on accepting travel or meals or entertainment. >> Okay. All right. >> And this can cover the next several because I broke out meals, I broke out entertainment. If it's your will to say that you're not able to accept any of those things, you can say so. Whereas travel and entertainment that no, you pay your own way, you're paying your own way. They're not allowed to pay that for you. And if that's the direction you want to go, then we can say that and it makes it nice and simple. If you want to make an exception for meals, you can do that or set a dollar limit. >> Okay. So I'm not tracking to some degree because I think I mean, I understand what Mayor Pro Tim is saying in that you don't if you're going on a fishing trip, you don't if there's a fee for getting on the boat and then there's a fee for pole rental and a fee for you have to pay for everything associated with that trip, that fishing trip. So what I think I'm hearing you say, example, sometimes we 'll be involved in organizations or something will happen where somebody will say, hey, if you'll come down for this seminar, you know, we'll pick up the hotel tab or something like that because you're part of the group. You're saying according to this, that's not allowed. The state does not allow that. >> If they're going with you, if they're there with you -- >> Oh, yeah, they're the host. Yeah. >> Then it is allowed. >> Okay. >> All those travel related expenses. >> And so are we saying that we don't want to do that? Is that what we're saying? That's what she said? Okay. All right. Go ahead. >> Well, I think regardless of, you know, whether we sort out who pays and all that kind of thing, there should be full disclosure. The disclosure, you know, like, okay, so you go on a fishing trip and you pay your way to the vendor. That still should be disclosed. >> Okay. All right. Go ahead. >> Yeah, that's where I fall. But I'm going to err on the side of consistency and say that we have this one provision in the rule already. So I think it needs to evenly apply. I think jumping around gets confusing. So what is the other scenario, what is state law, we decided applied was that -- I mean, it's all running together for me -- where they say it's gifts. If the gifting party is there at the game, then that's not counted towards a gift. I think that should be consistent in travel and meals I'm not so worried about, but whatever the other category is that's coming up. So I think, yeah, entertainment. So I think if the gifting party is there, consistent with the gifts portion of the code, it would apply. But with the caveat, I think, yeah, 100% disclosure on any -- so even if you pay your own way, you accept the gift and they're going to be there, either way, any travel needs to be disclosed. >> Okay. All right. And that would be disclosed on your financial -- on your campaign finances or maybe -- >> If I had it my way, it would just be something simple as an email to counsel in advance of the trip saying, hey, here's where I'm going, here's who I 'm going with. And then at least -- because it's done in advance. That's my thought. Looking back where it gets confusing. I think if you say I've accepted this trip, I've booked travel, you're going to book it a month or so in advance or whatever that is, but at that point you know and then this -- you notify council, city manager, I don't know how that 's constructed, but you just give notice via email to someone saying here's where I'm going, here's who I'm going with, here's the purpose of the trip, just as I'm disclosing this , that type thing. So then everyone knows. And if there is an issue, then that conversation is had sooner than later. >> Okay. Anybody over on this side of the room? Okay. Travel. If so, is there a dollar limit? So what I'm hearing is if the host is with you, that's per state law that you're not in violation but that you're saying give a disclosure. So are we saying that's okay? >> Not for me. >> Okay. All right. So for two of you? Okay. What about for you two? >> Well, yeah, it's fine by me. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Just asking a question again. >> Well, if you're -- let's say somebody's invited you, you 're part of a national organization or I don't know, and they said, hey, come to this seminar, we'll catch an airfare if you'll come, and they're going to be there. The hosts are going to be there. So is that okay? And that's not considered a conflict of interest or you can 't accept it, I guess is what I'm saying. >> I'd say don't accept it. >> Okay. >> I agree, but I think you also might want to think about distance. If you're talking about traveling out, you know, are you getting a ride with somebody to go out to the Denton Country Club or are you going to Wh itesboro or Wichita Falls or are you going to Houston? You know, the difference in the amount of that travel can make a huge difference. Is it a ride convenience? Are we trying to be green in carpool or are we actually incurring an expense in that? >> We could do what state law doesn't do, which is define this travel and entertainment as a gift regardless of whether the sponsor is with you or not. And if it's over 50 bucks, you just can't do it. And so the ride to Fort Worth is going to be less than 50 bucks and therefore is not under this prohibition. That would probably be the easiest thing to do. Is that what council wants to do? We seem to have a majority that does not want to allow city officials to take the free trips. So the easiest way to do that is just to define it as a gift and say if it's more than 50 bucks, you can't accept it. >> Yes. >> Help me understand. So we're saying that we think that it's okay for an employee or a council member to go on a trip that is paid by a vendor while there is an item up for discussion. >> I think the majority of the council is indicating they don't want to do that. >> Yeah. I don't think we're saying that. >> Okay. I'm just clarifying. >> Yeah. Okay. >> I think that's a big step. If that's what you're wanting to do, we're defining travel and entertainment just like any other gift. There's a 50 dollar limit and the whatever, there's a 200 dollar limit per year and one gift per vendor. I think that is a big step forward. You've gone way beyond what state law does to itself. And that would be an easier way to do it. Is that what we have consensus for? >> Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Sarah, go ahead. >> And I think there was a disclosure aspect to it as well or was there not? Did I miss that? >> No. If we're going to go his route, disclosure is not warranted because you're going to 50 bucks. If you're going the route that has been expressed here, it falls under the same purview of the 50 dollar gift limitation in general. There's not a disclosure requirement on the 50 dollar gift. >> That's what I would recommend. That's kind of the purpose behind having exceptions for de minimis gifts or whatnot is just to not have to mess with the guess work and the paperwork for something that small. And that's what I would recommend for administrative efficiency. >> Okay. So me and a guy drive up to Aubrey and eat a bologna sandwich and go fishing at the lake at Ray Roberts. I don't have to disclose that because it's way under 50 dollars. >> That would be the effect of what we're discussing at this point. >> Okay. Yes. >> We'll just keep it moving. But I disagree. I mean, I just think the goal is to get people to have a conversation early to disclose things, not to push people underground. And I just see it as we're creating something that trips are going to happen. We're going to sell people offers this, that and the other. And I think it adds a level of confusion that the gifts are categorized one way and now there's another. He termed it a gift again. But these gifts are treated differently. >> I think he's saying the opposite. He's saying the travel. >> No, no. Well, then he would go back. Because when we pass gifts, it was the state's understanding of gifts, which is you go to the football game as a gift, the gifting party is there. >> No, that's a different section. That's what we're discussing right now. The $50 gift limitation is one part of state law. The other part of state law is if you're going to a football game as long as they're there, there is no value on it. I mean, there's no limit on it. >> I'm understanding that that fell under gifts. Am I wrong? >> What I was just suggesting is if the council has a problem with city officials taking trips or going to entertainment events, courtesy of a vendor, then the easy way to deal with that is to call those trips or those entertainments or even the meals, treat them like any other gift. It all is under the definition of gift, which means no more than $50 per gift, only $200 maximum gifts in a year, and only one gift per vendor per year. >> But also a caveat of that category of gifts, there's another tier that was if you're at the football game and the vendor is there, it doesn't count against gifts. Am I wrong there? >> I don't think council has voted to keep that separate. It's not yet. State law treats it separately. The going to the Dallas Cowboy game in the sky box is separate under state law. No reporting, no dollar limit if the host is with you. What we're discussing is do you want that same activity to be considered a gift in Denton, therefore $50 limit and those sorts of things. >> Yeah, and you're not going. That's what you're saying. It's not going to happen. >> That's right. >> Because you're -- yeah. >> Then I don't understand. >> Yeah. >> Where are we on that scenario if he just laid out at the football game? >> Where we are now from what I'm hearing is that that will fall -- that we're not going to follow state law. That what that will do is you will take whatever is being offered you, and if it's over $50, you can't accept it. So if Jerry Jones calls me up and says, hey, I want you to come stay in my sky box, under state law, as long as he's there, somebody's there, I can do it. But under what we're discussing, parking alone is almost $ 50. So I'm not going to be going and letting him pay that. I can't accept it. I'd have to pay my own way whatever that value would represent. That's where we are now. >> Okay. >> Is that -- >> No. So I mean, I don't support that at all. >> Okay. >> Because, again, if -- let's say Corporation X comes into town, it's going to apply to our employees also. So then all of a sudden Corporation X comes in and says, hey, I want to take you out to dinner and talk about our project, you know, this, that, and the other. There's two people there. You've blown $50. So no, we can't go. Sorry, Corporation X. You have to send an email and review it that way. I mean, or, you know, it just -- it gets -- okay. I mean, that's -- as a person in sales, that -- I mean, it just -- again, it goes to my point earlier. You're assuming everybody's a crook. You know, if you're outlaying it that way versus, hey, we elect honorable people to do honorable things and our city conducts itself accordingly. >> This is travel. I think we've got a separate thing coming up for meals. >> No, no, he put it all together in gaps. >> Oh, well -- >> I'm asking. >> Yeah. Yeah. No. I need to have a little bit more discussion about the meal part because I don't know if I -- I don't know if I would say, hey, if you've got a project that you're working on -- now, if you've got an RFP out and you've got different vendors, well, then that's a whole different story but if you've got somebody that you're talking to about something that isn't going to go through an RFP -- I mean, if you're saying you can't go to eat dinner with anybody and I'm sure you're saying if they can't pay for it, you've got to pay for it yourself, I just think we need to have that discussion. But as far as the travel and everything, other than that, I 'm okay with the whole $50 thing. >> Okay. So we can take meals separately because for my -- the difficulty I was having is it seems there was consensus on council that a vendor can't take a city council member on an all-expense-paid fishing trip. >> Right. >> And what the difference is between that and a vendor taking you to Jones Stadium, AT&T Stadium in Arlington and paying for all that, I don't know how to parse the difference. >> Yeah, no. >> So if there is a difference, I need help in deciding how to define that. >> No, there's not a difference. >> So we are going to lump that into the gift thing, which means basically you're not going -- unless Jerry Jones is your brother-in-law, then of course you're allowed to accept it because most ethics ordinances are going to have exceptions for gifts from people that you have a personal or familial relationship with. Otherwise, no, you're in a position of saying no. >> Go ahead. Keely. >> We're talking about city council, but also staff and employees, right? This will apply. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Okay. So the answer to your question is yes. From what I can understand and the direction I've heard, the whole -- do you have a question? >> No, I'm just -- just to be perfectly clear, this is -- because I think about -- I've had banks that have taken me to the ball game, and that's because of my business side. So just for clarification, there is definitely a difference , but how do we know what banks the city deals with? You know, that's -- when you have that relationship on both sides, how will we clarify that? >> How have people handled that in the past? >> I had a bank that took me to the cleaners once. >> Alan, how do you distinguish between, you know, somebody engaging you because they have a -- they've had an ongoing business relationship with you and not because you are a policymaker for the city? >> Most city ethics ordinances that I've seen say if you have an independent relationship with this donor, this gift giver outside of the city, and the city and your authority with the city is not the basis for that relationship, then the gift is okay. And the burden is on you to establish that if someone brings forward an ethics complaint accusing you of something, then you're in the position of saying, oh, I didn't go to the ball game with the banker because of my city council position. I went to the ball game with the banker because they're also my banker in my private business. >> Okay. >> Okay. Do you have direction on that part of it? >> I feel like I've got direction on that part. I understand there's a need to treat meals differently. >> Okay. >> Okay? >> No, no, I'm just asking. >> Or is there not? >> Well, go ahead. >> I'm just laughing because pay for your own meal. I mean, you're there representing the taxpayers. Pay for your own meal. >> Okay. Who else? >> I'm just going to -- because I've gone and said what I do already when I meet with somebody and talk about anything related to the city, even if I just have tea, I buy my own tea. It's just what I think we should do. >> Okay. Anybody else? Yes. >> Well, I've had situations where you go out to lunch with somebody, you pay for it this time, they pay for it the next. So that's when you -- >> You just got to change it. If we do it this way -- >> As long as we're staying under the -- I don't know quite how to -- >> No. >> Now, are we dealing strictly with vendors or -- yeah, in -- when we went to make that trip to Austin for the legislative and depending on who you went out to dinner with, well, the meal is easy to pick out and say, okay, I'm going to pay for my steak and my potato, but how many glasses of wine did you have when they're bringing out bottles of wine? How do you pay for your portion of that? And, you know, while they bought a $100 bottle of wine, I would have drank the $10 if that was my choice or -- >> There's a threshold question here first before we can answer this question. Because what we've done so far up to this point is we've said $50 gift limit, $200 aggregate per fiscal year, one per vendor. We've applied that to travel, entertainment, and all those other things. So I think to be consistent, this should apply the same way . So if you're out with somebody who hasn't given you a gift and it's a vendor and they want to pay for your steak dinner, you know exactly how much it is. So there it is. So I don't think we should -- I mean, if we're going to be consistent, then I think this should be subject to the same one that we just decided just a moment ago. And the one we decided in the beginning. If it's $50 or less per those restrictions, no big deal. You got to keep track of it, though, because you've got to aggregate them out. So that's what I'm proposing, is we just make it consistent with the rest of everything that we're doing when it comes to the gifts. Because if you start having different rules, then you've got to figure out -- if you're going to have a blanket rule for all the way up to this, I think it should apply to this as well. >> Okay. Now, on your aggregate, is that -- are you now lumping that 200 for all things? >> Yes. >> When we talked about the 200. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. It's not just gifts, travel, and meals. You get 200, 200, 200. It's 200 total of this umbrella of all these things that somebody could be giving you, is what I'm understanding. That's where we would be if council chooses to do this. >> Okay. >> Which may have the result of more of you turning in more receipts to City Hall for reimbursement. I don't know. >> Right. Yeah. >> An ethics conversation leads to a budget discussion. >> Yes. That's true, too. Okay. Any -- you're smiling. I appreciate your affirmative -- >> It's lunacy. I mean, the enforcement of this is going to equate to lun acy. And so -- and correct me if I'm wrong. We can file an ethics complaint, right? I mean, it's wide open. Anybody -- >> We're not there yet, but I bet that's where we end up. >> Every citizen in Denton can ring the bell for any of these issues we're outlining. I'm just -- >> But they also have to have -- there's some things we can discuss about what they have to have. Does it have to be, you know, attested to? I mean, there's going to be -- it's not just that somebody can fill out a piece of paper without any good faith knowledge of the facts. And they're going to -- I mean, we can tighten that up to where it doesn't create as much lunacy as you think it might. >> Yeah. We're sitting in this room crafting it and have had to go back three, four times on the key points to make sure we get our head around it. And -- okay. I'm enjoying the process. >> Does that give you -- does that -- >> It makes it easier . >> But it doesn't prevent council members from paying for the dinner for whoever you're eating with, like a vendor. Like if I want to pay, if I'm talking to person X and we order a couple meals and I want to pay for it, that's not even applicable here. >> Correct. >> Because I'm the one doing it. All right. Okay. So sounds like -- yes? >> And just to clarify, so that gifting is in perpetuity, right? So if I pay for the gift and then somehow I get compensated four months later, somehow that's regulated, right? >> What do you mean compensated? >> So if I say, hey, for the purpose of the meal, I pay for it, I pay -- you know, I pay for it. We sit down, we have the meal, I pay for it. Then four months later, that individual says -- a check shows up, says, hey, here's my half of the meal or whatever that is. I mean, it's -- this would cover the future, right? It covers going forward. I can't say, hey, I paid for that meal and then I got a check that's not for the meal, it's just a check that I received, right? You understand what I'm saying? I don't know how else to say it. >> Yeah, I understand what you're saying. >> It's a reimbursement, but I paid for the meal, you know, but it's not a check for the meal, it's a check. So their half was 25, all of a sudden $25 shows up and somehow this ethics code covers that, right? It says you can't receive checks from that individual after you pay for the meal. >> Yeah, I know where you're going and I think at the end of the day, you're still not ever going to be happy because there's going to be shades of gray, self-reporting, but I think the main purpose in this, and I can give you a quick example of what we've done internally, but you know, the main purpose in this is that by somebody acquiring something for you, taking you out to dinner, whatever it may be and paying for it, that they're not influencing you with their money. And you know, so that is the purpose of this is -- you've got proof that you paid for it, you've got a receipt, whatever, and that's about as far as you can go because perceptions matter especially when there's money or zoning being traded . Internally we've created -- we've taken it one step further on the purchasing side. Before you can sit on an evaluation committee of an RFP, RF Q, something like that, you've got to fill out a form, basically a testing and disclosing any relationships you have with any of the vendors, any interactions you've had with them previous, or if you've taken any type of meals, anything like that, or you're not allowed -- and if that exists, we don't allow you to sit on an evaluation committee. So the whole point is, I think to your point, is to get it out there, disclose it, try to be a little bit more proactive with things, and again, it tends to have that regulatory authority that the council's looking for. I know we're diving into detail saying this is practical. When these types of policies are put in place, there is a real chilling effect that takes place with vendors, and again, it's about protecting the council, protecting the staff from those types of accusations. It's really what it's for. Right, but for me, it's preventative. That's what I'm trying to get to, and so I put forth an option where you can full disclosure in advance before you go to the trip to have that investigation, have that conversation in advance, and that goes by the wayside for self-reporting that requires no disclosure. So now I can travel wherever I want and just pay for it myself or do whatever, and no one knows where I'm going, what I'm doing, versus a wide open, anytime you go anywhere and a vendor's there, disclose it, which to me is the transparency that our citizens deserve, not some, quote, "We hope the best." It's like, "Hey, every time you travel," and that's easily proved up. You did travel, here's the receipt. That's simple and clean and enforceable versus this where it has options if you choose to explore those. Those options have consequences, granted, but an ironclad way is every time you travel, report it, and we've put that to the side for something where we're hoping for the best. For me, I just have a problem with that component of it. I'd rather know where is Mayor Watts going and when. That's just my personal preference. Okay. So, it sounds like from the standpoint of meals, we have the same paradigm and process as the others. Okay. All right. That's where we'll go. Okay. All right. So this was meant to be two, two and a half hours. We're running a little bit long. And we do have lunch, so. And we have lunch. I don't know what your preference is at this point. We have two sections to go. I think they can be dealt with pretty quickly. No, no, we need to power through this. But I don't know how much we're going to be getting through this. Yeah, I mean. So I'll keep. Yeah, yeah. No, we need to, we need to. Council, what's your pleasure? I mean, we need to grab us our sandwiches, but what, I mean , do y'all want to just, I figure what you're saying is we'll probably get out of here by about 1.30 or 2 o'clock. It's about 12 right now. Depends on how long y'all take. Yeah. I mean. That's very diplomatic. I was hoping to be gone by 12. Then I'm optimistic that 1 o'clock would be the end of it. But I'm here for you. All right. Well, we've got sandwiches. Let's grab some sandwiches. And unless I'm hearing a bunch of objections moving forward , we're just going to move forward. Okay. All right. So we'll take a five minute break and grab us our lunch. Welcome back to our meeting with city council on the 27th of January. It's 12 13. We are in the home stretch. That's right. Hitting close to the finish line. That's right. Thank you for the lively discussion that preceded this. I think we tackled some things that were kind of the heart of the difficulty of having these types of regulations. I think that the section three should be a little bit easier, but we'll see the question comes up about outside employment. And this this normally goes towards staff at this point. And it's the notion of having a job outside of City Hall. How much does City Hall care about that? You may already have some administrative rules. You may already have some personnel HR rules. But this is a question regarding the ethics ordinance. And do we want to restrict someone's employment? Yes or no. If yes, what type of employment do we care about? For example, is it going to be just you're not allowed to to do work outside of City Hall that is similar to related to or overlaps with your work at City Hall? Are you allowed to moonlight as long as it's got nothing to do with your official duties? And that's the sort of things that city ethics ordinances get into. I want to hear from the city manager before we. The previous city and I were working on this policy right now. It's not as tight as we'd like to see it. Our recommendation would be that that any outside employment received either be a disclosure in the department head and the manager's office sign off on that to make sure that we're running the traps on any conflicts of interest, that sort of thing. If there's a separate business, we have some employees that many employees, particularly public safety, for instance, that will have three days off or four days off. And if they have businesses completely unrelated to the city, do we care? But those that policy needs to be put in place. And we're working on that right now. But if there's any conflicts, any any particular revenue being derived from vendors, that sort of thing, we just simply would not approve that. So it would be city managers preference that we not address that topic in this ordinance because it's going to be addressed elsewhere. I'm perfectly OK that requiring disclosure. My intention is when this ordinance is put in place, the personnel policies will mirror it. So you know, so it's perfectly fine with me to have it adopted in this fashion. But there certainly needs to be disclosure and making sure that conflicts are cleared internally before that outside employment is approved. My inclination would be for the city manager to go ahead and finish his work on that policy. And it may be that we once it's done that we want to adopt it as an ordinance as part of this ordinance. But let's do that first question I have about that. I know that the county has adopted the city of Denton's building code. And as a result, what they have done sometimes is city building inspectors moonlight on Saturdays or Sundays, and they do inspections of construction projects that are outside the city limits in the county. And the county likes to hire them because they know the code already. Would that be allowed or is that allowed or would that be something that's there that would be problematic? I mean, be case by case if it was outside of the city of Denton County projects, enforcing our code. I probably just want to run it through the city attorney's office have that discussion. I don't know that I see a lot of issues if it was for if that same person was, for instance, doing investigation or I'm sorry, doing inspections of county property within the city, it wouldn't allow it. So there needs to be a clear, you know, it needs to be a clear red line there that, you know, if you're being compensated by someone, whether it's another governmental entity or not, you're not allowed to work within the city of Denton on their projects. Yeah, question. Oh, I think I would be in favor of sort of delaying this part of the discussion until we because this is clearly within the city manager's pur view. I mean, counsel by charter is prohibited from dealing with person in personnel matters. So I'd like to see what is developed at the at the employment manual level, especially if it's going to require a sign off from whatever level of management. I think we need to really follow the direction of city manager in that regard. Yes. I would ask, though, whatever policy comes up with that it goes into our ordinance. Yeah. Thank you. All right. And this one is actually our final discussion item. Oops, no second to last representation of others. And we have three different questions under this. But the idea is to what extent are we going to use our ethics ordinance to try to restrict the ability of city officials, whether they're elected staff, or boards and commission members to represent themselves or others before the city of Denton . And you know, we can talk about it comprehensively, but by looking at the other two questions that are coming up, if we are going to do that, how far is it going to go? And I'm always going to, you know, prod you to think about what really is the scope of your concern. And you know, an example is can city council member represent themselves before the city council on an issue regarding their property or on a business that they work for? We've already discussed that there's a conflict of interest rule, and that requires to be open about it through disclosure and recusing yourself from those deliberations. This is where we started straying into that next area that the mayor rightly predicted was coming up on this one. Does that mean the council member can't go advocate in favor of their variance at the Board of Adjustment when that comes up? Or must they hire somebody else to be their representative, or allow their spouse or somebody else that's a member of their household to go advocate on their behalf? Is that person's individual personal relationship with City Hall that we're concerned about? Or something broader than that? Same is true with with employees. And of course, it gets sticky when you're talking about boards and commission members. Are we saying that a P and Z member is able to advocate their interests in front of council or in front of parks or in part of some other board? Or is there an across the board prohibition on those sorts of things? And then we make exceptions for what you can represent yourself regarding your own project, or your mother's project. Or what some cities do is just say, well, you can do whatever we're not going to curtail your ability to speak as long as you're not getting paid to speak. So if you're a lawyer, a realtor, an architect, you can't represent a paying client in front of the board you serve on or in front of the city as a whole. And so I've given you kind of a broad range of options. That's because a lot of cities address it in different ways . And I think you've got a great deal of discretion. This is actually one of the areas where there's there is case law. I mean, it's ethics is a bizarre area to talk about as a lawyer, when it seems so legal ease. But really, there's very few court opinions on ethics matters. One we have to draw from is the city of San Marcos, where their rule was if you serve on a city border commission, you cannot accept pay to represent a private party in front of any city border commission. And the chair of their planning and zoning commission was a lawyer. He had a paying client, he advocated that clients interest before another city border commission, and was deemed to automatically vacated his seat on the planning and zoning commission. And the council then went and appointed a new chairman for planning and zoning. He actually brought a suit, and it actually went all the way up to the Court of Appeals, which is rare for this type of thing. And the Court of Appeals found that he had no property interest, no right to his position on PNZ, and that the city council had broad discretion in adopting ethics rules that have viewed necessary for the integrity of their government. So that's one of the few cases we have to draw upon to say that you do have a lot of discretion. My job is to help you understand your choices and hopefully be clear if you choose to exercise any regulation over this area, because you don't have to. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> Just a question. I had thought being on council that we were not allowed to go and talk to PNZ during a PNZ meeting. Is that something that currently we're not allowed to do, or is that just something that I thought we weren't? >> I don't think it's policy. >> It's just practice. >> Right. It's just practice. >> I think that may be something that we want to address in the ethics department. Some rules about our behavior in regard to our advisory or quasi-legislative boards and commissions. I think that we might need to add a section. >> Okay. So this is the issue at hand. Thoughts? Well, we are running out of gas. Any -- yes, go ahead. >> I think the line for me would be if you're receiving rem uneration for the activity. So if you're there on behalf of a paying client, I think that should be prohibited. But I still struggle with the idea of a commissioner going to a different -- not so much commissioners, but councilmembers going to different subcommissions and presenting whatever case they may have. Because I could see either staff getting intimidated, because, you know, do they want to conflict with what the mayor or the mayor pro tem is advocating for? I would hate to put staff in that position. So for city councilmembers, I would say specifically they should not be advocating on behalf of anything on the other boards. For other board members, I don't think they should be advocating if they're receiving remuneration of any kind. >> So what about councilmembers? You said other boards. What about an issue before the council? >> Also a councilmember addressing council. >> Yeah. You sort of limited it to you don't think they should go to other boards. I'm just saying are you including in that the council? >> I would say so. Because you could still be in the same position of staff has a recommendation one way and you're advocating on another position and then later you get up on the dais and have make important decisions. So I'd say just hire someone to do it for you. >> Any other comments? >> Just as a councilmember, there's other ways that if we feel one way or another about an issue that we can talk to our constituents about it without advocating to a board. >> Well, but these are issues that are -- that you have some personal interest in. So I mean, you can talk -- >> Oh, okay. >> Yeah, this is just what you have a personal interest in. I think -- so that's a good point. So let me make sure I understand. I have no interest in a certain -- there's a zoning case coming up around my house, let's just say. I get the 200 foot notice. Or I don't get the -- in other words, I come and want to talk to the P and Z just on an issue that doesn't have any relation to me as far as monet arily or anything like that. I just have an opinion about it. >> So this is just -- this is having to do with our interest. But am I right on that? Or are we talking about you just can't do it no matter what ? Is that what this -- >> I think that's a choice. >> Okay. I'm not for that you can't do it no matter what because then if you get on council, therefore, you sort of give up your right to be able to speak on some issue that really doesn't have a pecuniary or monetary value to you. But certainly if you have an interest in it, like you, I think you should not be speaking to anybody because it could be -- you know, it's difficult. >> Could I -- does that give us two bites at the apple? I mean, if we can go and lobby planning and zoning, then they make a decision and then it comes to council and we have to decide. >> That's true. I see what you're saying. >> So I'll retract what I just said. >> But there may be some cases where it's a decision that doesn't go past planning and zoning. >> If you won't hear it eventually, you may be able to talk about it. If it won't come to you. >> Or if it ends up coming up here and you've already lobb ied, then you're -- >> You might have to recuse yourself. >> -- recused. >> Yes, ma'am. >> I just think council members have to be really cognizant if we were to speak, like contrary, as I said, to what staff recommendations are. There's a lot of influence there and I just don't know that it's appropriate for council members, even if you're receiving money, I don't know that it's appropriate to have this conversation with you as your public figure, you know, being that person and taking a position. >> I don't disagree with that. Because you'll have a -- are you saying even if it doesn't come before us? >> Yeah, I'm saying even on like -- let's say it goes before ZBA, which never comes to us. I still think that there's that opportunity for influence because -- by virtue of being an elected official. >> I'm going to go to John. >> I think if you have to or would have to recuse yourself, you know, if you're on council and it's a ZBA issue and if you were on ZBA, you had to rec use yourself for that issue, then, you know, that's where that crossover becomes the case. Anything that's -- it's going to go to PNZ before it comes to council. If you're going to have to recuse yourself on council, you shouldn't be able to speak in front of PNZ. If it's something that's before ZBA that may never come to council, but if you were on ZBA, you would be required to recuse yourself. Then as a member of the council or board, you should recuse yourself. >> I agree. >> Well, but what I'm hearing is -- I'm hearing something different from you. You're saying it doesn't matter whether you -- it's an issue where you have to recuse yourself. You're just saying council shouldn't be talking to these other boards and commissions, period. >> That's right. >> Okay. >> I think that's right. What I want to make sure of also in our discussion is that we're not making it impossible for someone that is, for example, on the parks and rec advisory board from appearing before planning and zoning, if there's a zoning issue involving their property or that's -- they have an opinion and they're within the 200 foot or the 500 foot limit and they think it may affect their property. They ought to have the opportunity to go for planning and zoning and state their case. I think -- I can't think of a reason why they shouldn't. One other item on this about representation of others. We don't have this written down anywhere, but it could be a problem. There are times when council members go to Austin to lobby before a transportation committee or another committee and there are times when we're going and we're carrying a resolution passed by the council. Or we are going because the council has already spoken on that legislative issue in our legislative agenda packet that has been voted on and approved by the council. There are other times when we may be going and speaking as an individual. And I think that we might need to have something in our ethics ordinance to indicate that when we're going to speak to lobby at a different level, that we 're careful that we're not representing the city council or the city of Denton unless -- unless we 've been authorized to do so in one of a limited number of ways. Otherwise I think that we're abusing our position by going down and lobbying saying -- and making folks think that we're representing the whole city when we 're not. >> I don't think it's being a member of the city council that we really need to be addressing any of these committees. You know, PUB or any of them. I don't think we should ever be addressing them because, you know, we're in a position that -- >> I'm talking about state issues. For example -- >> State issues, that's another thing. >> I went down to Austin to testify for the state public utility board about a transmission line that they were talking about running through the northern part of the city. And there were a couple of other issues, transportation issues where I've gone down. The mayor has gone down to testify on several different issues. At times he's testifying on behalf of our legislative agenda. And then he should -- you know, he certainly should represent himself as representing our point of view. Otherwise if it's on something where we haven't spoken, he shouldn't be abusing that. >> So did you have a comment besides that? >> No, not besides that. I'm just looking at it from, you know, as a city council member, I don't think we need to go to, you know, any advisory boards or anything else. I don't think we should be speaking to them directly. Let them do their job. They've got a job to do. Let them do it. >> So on this question, we're a little bit off this question because I think this is answered pretty easily. Representation of others, it sounds like at least Mayor Pro Tem put forth the bright line rule of if you're receiving compensation, you can't do it. So is the converse of that true? If you're not receiving compensation, you can do it? >> This is for board members, not for council members. >> Correct. >> I feel like there should be a little bit more room for board members than council members. >> I'm in agreement with that. So for board members outside of council members, if you're receiving compensation, you can't do it. If not, otherwise you can't. So I want to make sure to clarify something. When we talked about during the disclosure and abstention from voting and the standing down of deliberations, we talked about it being applicable to council. Did we also make it applicable to other P&Z or other boards because let's say for instance, if you've got somebody on a -- the only thing I can think of is planning and zoning commission because that's where you do development and things such as that. So if you've got somebody on the planning and zoning commission that is doing a development, it's going to come before them eventually for some type of action. Do you remember if we included in that scenario, that kind of paradigm, boards and commission members that if they're going to be voting on -- if they have to recuse themselves on something, then they also have to stand down from discussing it with staff, whatever the reason is -- whatever caused the recusal. >> We didn't discuss that at that time. >> Okay. >> I'll tell you, the conflict of interest statute 171, the Texas local government code does apply to P&Z. I've never seen it applied to another city board or commission. >> So I think we need to clarify that -- because it is a legislative -- is P&Z a legislative -- I don't think it is. >> No, but they do have final decision making on -- >> Different things. >> -- flats and other types of things. >> I think we need to apply that part of the conflict of interest to P&Z members as well. >> And also probably zoning board of adjustment if it's their project. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Just wanted to make sure that I clarified that. Yes. >> I just want to summary -- it's gone around a bit. So can someone summarize where we are? >> On this one? >> Yes. >> I think on this particular one, representation of others , this is not for city council. This is the rules for boards and commissions. That if you are serving on a board or commission and you go before either the board or commission you're on or another board or commission and you're receiving pay for advocating for representation of someone else, like let's say you hire me to go -- I'm on P&Z -- to go advocate for something on P&Z or board of adjustments or something like that and you're going to pay me. I can't do that. If I just want to come and speak and advocate on your behalf because you and I know each other and we're good friends, from what my understanding is , I can do that as long as I'm not getting paid for it. Is that -- >> Yes. >> Is that my understanding? >> That's my understanding as well. >> Okay. So I'm hearing that's a consensus. So is that helpful as far as -- >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. >> So this takes us to what is our last list of discussion item for today. And it's very common for city ethics ordinances to have some standard language in there about not being able to improperly influence others. For example, to either use your position on city council or use it as a staff or as a member of P&Z to either get benefits or approvals for someone that would not be available to the general public or to deny someone those approvals, contracts, permits that otherwise would generally be available to members of the public that were similarly situated. Is that something that you want to include in your code as a specific prohibition? >> This will be the fastest one that we do. >> You think so? Because who's going to vote in favor of using your official position to step in and deny someone or to grease the wheels? >> Anybody object to putting it in that we are prohibited from doing that? Everybody okay with that? Yes. >> I would like to see a pretty good definition of what imposing harm or providing benefit means. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> For sure. >> Just for clarity purposes and so people have a heads up. >> Are there some examples in our backup? >> Were there examples in our backup, Alan, about -- >> The examples I'm looking at that the language is fairly broadly worded. You know, farmers branch, no officer of the city shall use one's official position to secure special privileges or benefits for such other persons or grant any consideration, treatment or advantage to any citizen, individual, business organization or group beyond that which is normally available to every other citizen, individual, business or group. >> What I like about this one is that one in farmers branch talked about just an advantage. This one also says that you can't do harm, which could be just as detrimental. I mean, you could really harm someone. >> Correct. >> The city of Laredo's any city official employee shall not use his or her official position to unfairly advance or impede private interests. And it goes on to do both sides. >> So I think we've got sort of a general consensus on at least this general type of language and then with some additional definitions for what was it, harm and benefit. >> Yes. I can add those. >> I'll find better examples. >> Yeah, those will be fine. Okay. Any questions, follow-up questions, clarification? Dalton, you? >> It may be when we're talking about other issues for future discussion. >> Okay. All right. Well, we did sort of plow through that at the end. >> We did. >> We saved the easy for the last. >> That's exactly right. >> Yeah. I knew when you all would be tired. Here is the agenda for our next meeting that was put out on your schedule. >> Okay. Yes. >> I don't know which meeting we might want to consider it, but I know that there has been a question that's come up in the past and it has to do with that we may need rules for ourselves so that we're clear on it, so that new members are clear, so that staff isn't put in the position of having to advise us or guide us on things like our attending and participating individually in board and commission meetings and our attending executive sessions of boards and commissions. I know there was a question that came up about council members going into the executive session of the public utility board. So we just need to address it to give clarity to what we should or shouldn't do and not leave it up to staff to try to interpret that. >> Okay. All right. Any other questions or comments before we move on to concluding items? Concluding items. Anybody have concluding items? Go ahead. Go ahead. Yes. >> I would like to request to have a work session about the recent pick count that was done so that council can be updated on our homelessness issue and -- >> Point in time. >> Point in time count. And also update on the homelessness, where we are and possible solutions. It's time for that conversation. >> Yes. Don? >> You know, as I drive around at least in the southern part below Denton, I drive out west and there's huge residential infrastructure that's been put in there. A lot, a lot. You go down 1171 and there's a couple of huge residential there. Okay. And of course, Argyle has got a couple of new ones that just broke the ground. My question is, are they using PIDs to do that -- their infrastructure? Are they using PIDs or are the -- are the developers footing the whole bill? And somehow or another, I don't know. I shouldn't make any more comments. That's basically what I would like to know. Am I missing something? >> I don't see a whole lot of those big developments like that, residential developments in Denton. I kind of wonder why not. I know that we got a couple that are probably going to come some day, but I have no idea when. >> All right. So your request is just to sort of get some fact finding about those large residential developments, how they're -- are there any type of kind of policies or -- >> Yes. >> What would you call them? >> Incentives. >> Incentives. >> Okay. Anybody else? Yes. >> I forget to mention, and I don't know how this is coordinated, but I'd like the council to do something to honor Mr. Golkey, if at all possible. He recently retired as much as he's done for the city. I just don't know what that process is for the -- what's -- I'm drawing a blank proclamation. Thank you. But I'd like to submit that for consideration that someone would work that into the process. >> On Thursday, February 1st, Denton County Friends of the Family is holding an evening of raised awareness with Yama Brown, who's the daughter of James Brown, and she wrote a good book that I read last week called Cold Sweat about her experiences growing up with abuse and just really interesting book, and I think it will be a really good evening and a good discussion. It will be at the GDAC or Patterson Appleton, and it's at 7 o'clock, and I think they still have $15 tickets available. So. >> Great. Okay. Anybody else? Okay. We will stand adjourned at 1245.