May 02, 2022 Board of Ethics on 2022-05-02 6:00 PM

All right, so we will start the regular scheduled board meeting for Monday, May 2nd, 2022, 6 p.m. for the Board of Ethics. Jumping in, the first item for consideration, BOA 22-015, consider approval of minutes for March 31st, 2022. Did anybody see anything that needs to be corrected? Yes, I had a question about the item where it said what time I left the meeting. I've never seen the minutes. I believe that we're supposed to have that in there, but I'm not certain. I could go run and ask our city secretary. I've never seen that anywhere, but I would like that. I mean, I had stated that I had coverage until 10 minutes until the meeting was over, and I left. I stayed, and so anyway, I'll just question that one. Do you know, Scott, if we have to have that in there? I don't remember if, did you miss any votes, or did she? Yeah, I think that there was a vote on the meeting schedule, yes. Yeah, because we have to reflect who was present for the vote, for the sake of calculating the majority. So that means, let me, I'll show you the minutes. Okay, I'm just going to bring it up. Do I have any motion? I move to accept the minutes as written. All right, motion is made and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. And all opposed? Nay. And okay, so agenda item BOE 22-016, receive a report, hold the discussion, and take necessary action. Oh, I'm sorry, I guess that motion passes. I should probably say that. Okay, BOE 22-016, receive a report, hold the discussion, and take necessary action regarding forwarding proposals to amend C. Benton Code of Ordinances, Chapter 2, Article 11, Ethics, and the Board of Ethics rules a procedure to the City Council. So right now we're set on City Council's agenda June 7th, correct, and Madison has prepared a PowerPoint with all the changes that we've done, I think, over the past about two years, because of COVID and everything. We probably would have taken some of this sooner, but we did it for different reasons, and different reasons we didn't have meetings. So I think what we'll do is just have Madison give the presentation, and I know some new faces haven't seen some of this, if you have questions we can like discuss as we go along. And then I think some of us probably have seen all of it. And so yeah, let's see the presentation that we would take to the city and then we can vote whether, you know, we still all agree to take these changes in this presentation to the council. Yes. Okay, yeah, so I tried to summarize kind of all the changes that the board discussed over the last year or two into what's really just kind of six amendment proposals. And they're kind of outlined in a draft letter that was included in your packet as well. And they're also reflected in the red line kind of cohesively in those two documents, the red line document. So I'll just run through each one at a time, and then we can take any discussion, we'll take each one independently, I think we need to send each one separately basically. And we'll have to, I think we need to take action to basically forward the proposal for city council's consideration. So just about the structure of the discussion. Okay, so the first proposal was recommended in kind of created in March of 2022. And it just kind of removes the requirement for Board of Ethics panels to have at least one attorney or retired jurist. And really it was in response to the city council's change to remove the requirement for the Board of Ethics to have at least three members who are attorneys or retired jurists. So the proposed language changes on the screen. And then we can just have any discussion about this I think just kind of a cleanup item, or something like the city council did on its own. So, any questions about this? I think we need to take action. Do we want to take action on each one? I think so. I think that's the cleanest. But, especially if we, if some people don't, you know what I mean. But we don't have to do that, you would prefer to do it a different way. I guess, do we need a vote or can we just kind of do consensus? Since this is already, all the stuff is already passed. On each item, we don't need it. So, if you want to change it, then you're going to need to put that into your motion to approve this item for each part that you might want to change. So we've already voted that we want to change it to this and take it to city council. This is just the presentation that we're taking to city council. Right. So do they need to have a vote to forward it to city council? Or can we just have general consensus that this item, yes, we want it to go forward? As previously voted on. It's already been voted to be sent to city council, so if there's no changes, then yeah, technically you don't need a vote. It is on the agenda, though, for consignments. I guess it's up to the receiver to report it. So, no, I guess not. I shouldn't say take necessary action on the agenda. But I don't know that we need to take action. If there's no action, then no. I would say maybe at the end, we can take action of taking this whole PowerPoint there, but I kind of don't think we need a vote. Unless there's changes. I think this one's pretty simple. This one finally changes, unless everybody disagrees. And then we'll move to the second one. So the second one was recommended in October of 2021, and it adds to the definition of conflicting interests, the receipt of more than a $500 campaign contribution from an individual business entity or other organization. That's the original proposal language, proposed language changes on the slide. So, during a city council work session, just last month in April, council directed staff to discuss with the board the possibility of requiring council members to recuse themselves from deliberation on cases involving members of political action committees that have contributed more than $500 to that council member's campaign. So that was something that they brought up during work session to potentially have another work session on, and then I told them that you guys had kind of already had this proposal. So they said, okay, then take what we talked about to the board. They didn't really have a discussion. This was an idea, and they talked about maybe having a discussion and then said, send it to the board. So, is there anything that we want to change on this, based on city council discussion? From what I read in the paper, they just kind of wanted, it seems like what we have, I think it will cover an individual business entity is defined in the ordinance as certain things. And then I think by putting other organization, organization isn't defined, so that would cover pretty much any other organization that's giving $500. The only thing that when I was, it seemed as though the council member's proposal was any member from a political action committee, it would prohibit them. So I just don't know that that, I'm not certain that would cover it. So does that make sense? Like individuals that are part of a PAC, they were talking about that. Would you have a conflict of interest with, I mean, I guess you would have a conflict of interest with whatever is going on with that PAC because of the individual? Is that what you're saying? So if a PAC, I think this is what it was saying, I can pull it up to probably, if you'd like to read what the proposal said, would that be easier? I guess I'm not sure because I don't know what it is. Okay, let me just pull it up, I should have put it up here, but I decided not to. What is this? That was weird. What page is that? This was the original language from the work session request. Everybody read that? All right. I'm impressed that you could pull that out. I was there. That seems to be really in line with what they were talking about. Yeah, I guess if what we have doesn't cover it, I almost think we might need some sort of attorney that might know more about elections than I do to make up the wording. What does everybody think? Is there any other wording that we should change on our proposed? So for clarification, the question really is what does our language incorporate? Does our language incorporate PACs or does it not? I think that is a question that needs to go to a lawyer. At the end of the day, that is the question. Do we want to include PACs or does our language include them? Yeah, so say we keep the language as is and then somebody files a complaint, it's going to be up to us to decide whether PACs are included as other organizations. I think the language that's in here includes PACs. I think the question is would they have to recuse if the item, the subject of some item on the agenda would be a member of a PAC that is given more than 500. So the language that we have here covers individuals, business entities, and other organizations. The PAC is covered, but I think the last sentence under the request, I think there's a little gray area there. Well, if an individual gives more than 500, I guess they're going to be recused, but not necessarily who they work for. Or if they're a member of some PAC. I don't know if that would cover that. I think the language that we have here to revise the ordinance, the intent is to cover this, but I'm not sure if it would capture that. Can we go back to what our language is? Our language has recusing from participating in decisions if they took more than 500, but our language doesn't have anything about recusing, it just says it's a conflict of interest. Do we need to be more specific? As part of this definition, they would be required to recuse if they met this. It's not in this screenshot, I apologize. Then it's pretty similar, they both have recuse. I really like the way it's worded, because I think it gets around the pay to play thing that people are so concerned about, and I think that's what council is worried about, and I think that says it. I think we need to make it more specific than that. I kind of think we keep it, and if council doesn't like this, maybe they can bring it back, because I'm not sure how they would want us to word it. I'm sure they will, because that just came up. I have a question. It says campaign contribution. Is that the only, is it only related to a campaign that they would have a donor that would get $500? I guess what else would they donate to besides their campaign? I don't know. That's my question. There is, I believe, under this, something that addresses being on the board of a nonprofit. I can try to pull up that language, to pull up the ordinance so that we can double check what that says. This screenshot, again, doesn't include the entire section, so I can pull that up. I hear about war chests. Somebody may not be necessarily running for office at the time, but they are accepting donations. Does that happen with city council? I think, somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but if you donate to a politician any time of the year, that's going to be a campaign contribution. The war chest is their campaign money. If they don't run again, there's different ways they can give that money to other politicians or charities. I don't know if they keep it or what. $500 is a big contribution in the municipal election. I know that at a previous election, there were some donations that were in the $7,000 dollar range, so they were huge. I think that was the issue. Yeah, I think $500 takes out, I think it leaves it to more bigger organizations, probably. It's still a significant contribution, but not huge. I'm having trouble getting there for some reason. This is the current burden. So here it talks about business entity or non-profit corporation, so I guess that would cover other donations potentially. Maybe. I was just trying to help answer your question. There was a law that got changed a couple years ago on the federal level that allowed these PACs to not identify who they were, and so they weren't able to make anonymous donations, and so the game changed in a lot of political campaigns. And so we're trying to get around that by saying you have to identify yourself. I think that's a good $500, there you go. We have multiple people do it, that's fine, but they have to identify themselves. All right, so do we want to just keep it as is and move on to the next change? I think it covers it nicely, and it's not too specific. Let's see, so June is when we're presenting, and then I think we said no meeting in July, so August, we might be talking about again, we'll see. But I think we stick with it and we can move on unless there's any more discussion. The third proposal was recommended in June of 2021, and it clarifies the preliminary panel's ethics complaint review procedures. Proposed language is presented on the slide, and these changes were recommended in response to updates made to the ethics complaint form in January, which we did in January of 2021. So I think mostly it just kind of clarifies what is included in the contents of the complaint. It made clear that even though their ethics complaint form says that you must specify a provision of the ordinance that was violated, that the preliminary panel can consider if it was a violation of other sections of the ordinance, and made clear that the complainant does have to indicate at least one area that they believe was the violation. And for some of the newer members, so this came up because we had a complaint, and the complainant said like, you know, this council member said this thing at this time stamp in this video. And we were like, well, can we look at that and weren't sure. And I think this makes it to where a panel could look at it and I think it, it makes it to where like you're not. It's not like a panel saying we can't look at it and then it goes to a hearing when it doesn't have to because the panel could have just looked at the video that the person gave a hyperlink for in the complaint. And in that situation, you go to the hyperlink, and it, from what I remember somebody correct me if I'm wrong, it was clear that that was not what happened. So I cleared everything up really quick by being able to just go to the hyperlink. So that's why we changed that. And then. We, we wanted to make it clear that the person has put what they think what which ordinance they thought violated but we don't want them to be like shoehorn in that in case we like to see like oh they were mistaken it's obviously this other. Because they might not be experts in the ethics code so we don't want to penalize them for their lack of knowledge so you know just to help them as well as help us be fair and trying to deliberate whether it's an ethics violation or not. So, that's that anybody everybody's so good with us any discussion. All right, I think we can move on I think that was awesome. All right, so fourth proposal was recommended in October of 2021, and it's intended to clarify within the ethics ordinance the preliminary panels ability to recommend that hearing be held to determine if a complaint is frivolous before they determine if it's actionable or baseless. So, this is kind of the proposed language, very similar changes were made in the rules of procedure as well. So some of the things that are included in here, apart from just making clear that that's a possibility in the ordinance was to say that if a hearing is held for to determine if something is frivolous the complainant doesn't not have to attend that hearing. I thought because it was frivolous. Well, we thought it may be frivolous but we weren't sure the ordinance and the procedure work there. They said you can find something that frivolous but it was like well how do you do that. So we're clearing it up that you can, I guess the panel can, can like. It was only discussed in the rules of procedure that a panel in like one sentence that a panel could recommend that a hearing be held first. And so this is just to include that potential really option for the panel to do that within the ordinance as well. So it's more streamlined in one place. Does everybody think any comments. So looks good. All right, let's go to the next one so we can ride along. Okay, so the fifth proposal was recommended in September of 2021. What is the criteria used to assign board members to preliminary panels by prohibiting, essentially prohibiting board members who have submitted a complaint against a respondent from participating on that preliminary panel in the future. So that's another point. Does that make sense. It's a little complicated. We have to be able to still process that complaint. All right, I think we're still good on that one. All right. The sixth proposal was just last month we talked about this clarifies the rules of procedure if staff receives an advisory opinion request outlines those timelines that we discussed last time. And so this is the proposed language on the slide. So nothing has changed since last month. But yeah, there's any discussion on this and I feel like we talked about it last month so nobody's new on that one. I think we can move on, unless anybody speaks up. All right, so then the last slide just only has. Oh no I was like I just, I think we're toward the end. I was like oh wow I went really quick. If anybody has anything to say like please don't let me steamroll or talk over you. Go ahead. Yes, this is just there are a couple other little minor things that we changed. That's just what this is. This slide talks about one was just taking away the slash and or from a section of the ordinance to make it more clear. And then also, including that public hearing for actual complaint must be held within 30 days within the ordinance itself. Again, it was only actually specified. I don't know that it was actually specified anywhere so that is the timeline we've been using to making that just putting that in the ordinance that was clear for anybody reading it. Any concerns about these? A question about the first one I tried to find where the discussion was about it. For myself on the history. So I just wondered why we moving that makes it clear. Without hearing the discussion it seemed like it might be that you have to have both of those sections. Yes, I don't remember. Could you bring up the 279 subsection? Yes. Maybe we're adding it. Maybe it's on my end. I think that that's the problem. Yeah, I think you're right. I remember the and or discussion I guess I didn't remember through that. Yeah, I think it was because we were we were updating the ethics complaint form at the time we were like this is making sense anymore and so we have this discussion but I must have misremembered it when I was putting this together so I can shift the clarification. That's right. They don't need to violate both. And that's the way that reads. So, so I'll correct the presentation and the letter. But that's how it was. I believe that's that's how we voted on it. Correct. I believe so. I have to go check my records, but I think my under I understand the intent, but I don't know if you think we need to have a separate motion just for safety. I think so. I think I'm looking at the minutes from the last meeting. How about we start with a motion to add the and or part, just in case. Yeah, it's an addition here. Okay. We discussed it in June of 2021. Okay, so it is an addition so we're good on that. So then we'll just. Yeah, any more discussion on the presentation or they may have a motion with the letter with the presentation and the letter with the correction of the and or and to dash 2798. With the additional and with the changing to end. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Seconded. And is there any more discussion? Okay, I think we can go forward with that. Or I guess actually you vote. Everybody in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, now I think we're good on that. Me and Madison had actually talked before the meeting because she had an event tonight and I was like, well, why don't we take out, you know, just stick with this. We don't know how long we'll go because there are new members that might have more or less questions. So that's why this is going to be ending so quickly. So hopefully it's not a waste of time. Hopefully everybody still got something out of it because I think that's everything, right? That's all that's on your agenda. Okay, all right. On the letter, do you want any feedback on the letter? If you have feedback, then yes or no? Well, I really appreciate Laura's title of "Bard Eventics." There's something rather musical in that. And then in number six, it's pending "Motor" and it should be "Matter." Two T's. Oh, yes, got it. And the last bullet, "Report the withdrawal to the board." Yes. Okay. Oh, yes, got it. Okay, so should we have another motion and vote for the letter with the grammatical corrections or do you think we're good just with the last vote? I don't know. The letter in theory is written by you to the board, but I don't know that it needs to be approved unless you would like to. Oh, no, I think it could be fine. I mean, I think I can just write a letter as the chair to go along with the presentation, so I think we're good on that. So anything else about anything in BOE 22-016? Okay, I think that's it then, and if there's nothing else from Madison? We will discuss the conflict. I already started researching all of that. I do apologize if I did not realize I had this event when we talked about the meeting last time. Oh wow. It was like a national award, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, we won. No wait, that's part of the event. I accepted the awards this morning. It's a Knighton Award from the Association of Local Government Auditors. It's for outstanding performance audits. Wow, congratulations. Thanks for bringing that up, and I want to know. It's better if auditing and portamento stay out of the paper, because that means we're just doing our job and it's going wrong. Okay, all right, well with that, great news. I guess the meeting is adjourned. Thanks everybody.