Feb 06, 2023 Board of Ethics on 2023-02-06 5:30 PM

Okay, all right, so it's 530. I think everyone that was able to come tonight is now here. We have a quorum, and is there anything else I need to say at the beginning? Nope. Oh, you said 530, yeah. Yeah, it's 530, okay. So we'll get started. The first item for consideration, BOE 23-006, consider approval of minutes for January 9, 2023. And Madison has, well, we've been sent, I guess by Tammy, all of those. Does anybody have anything on the minutes? Nope. Move for approval. Move for approval of minutes by Annetta. Do I have a second? I'll second. Second by Dustin. Any discussion? All in favor of approving January 9th's meeting minutes, say aye. Aye. All opposed? So unanimous, passed. All right, item B, BOE 23-010, receive report, hold discussion, and take necessary action regarding a process for receiving residential comments regarding the Board of Ethics' work. And we got an agenda information sheet. Did you want to go over the options? I mean, I can go over them really quickly. They're in there. This was an item brought up kind of last meeting after I had sent you all some letters that I received over the weekend. And basically I just came up with four potential options for how you would like to receive comments in the future. One would be kind of like what we did this past time that it occurred, which was just direct comments to me, make sure that that's clear on the website. And then within three days, I can replace that calendar of business in the backup, but within three days I would refer those to you. And then we could also direct all comments to me on the website, and then we could just put them on an agenda as, hey, we received these. We could also create, which this would be new for the board, have a public comment period during regular meetings. Or we could on the website say, hey, just email the board. Their emails are here, basically. Well, I know that the first option is more work for you according to your table on the back. But I mean, I would say it's kind of worth that you just send them all to us. And that way we all see them versus like who knows who they would email. And, you know, we open up for public comment at each meeting. I don't know. I don't know what we'll get. And that way we can kind of we get the comments. And if it's something that's not very useful, we don't have to waste time at the meeting. And if it is useful, then we all get it and we can decide to talk about it. That would be my idea to go with one. Sorry, this has more work for you. That's fine. Yeah, I agree. I do think that emailing us, but also putting it on the agenda, I think will make it a little bit more formal for us to discuss. Even if we even if we just have an agenda point of, you know, we can say we don't need to take any action based on what we read. But I think it would it's a clear line of how we're going to then proceed if we get the emails. Yes. And the way we could do that is there's a I could do what's essentially called a management report and basically it would just be an item on the agenda. The comments would be listed within the agenda packet. Any emails we receive or anything like that. And then you could either decide to discuss them or not. But they would still be in the agenda. OK, so we could read them and then we could just move on if it's nothing we need to discuss. You wouldn't necessarily even have to read them out loud in the meeting. They would just be part of the agenda. OK, yeah. So that's number two. Yes. OK, that sounds reasonable. I need to throw in a recommendation, if possible, for number three. Other cities allow for public comments during their Board of Ethics meetings. And I would just respectfully remind everybody what an ethics board is all about. It is a connection between the citizens of the city and the governmental process. So I think any opportunity that we have to include citizen comments either directly or in writing would be much to our benefit. We would be excluding a valuable resource if we do it otherwise. So I strongly would recommend that we consider number three. I liked number three the best too. And the reason, I was looking at the chart and I don't want to make more work for you. But I don't, I mean, if we just have, this is our public comment time. You can come, you can fill in a blue card, just like we do at council. This is where people come when they have a, let's see how it makes more work. It seems like more work the other way. And I do think that it's important, transparency is a big core ethics concept. And just having that public forum where people can come and talk to me feels a lot more in line with what we're trying to do. We're there for public trust. I think if they emailed her and then it was on the agenda and we all got it, I think you would still have that. And we could decide what needs to be discussed. I think my understanding, Scott, if I think I'm wrong, with public comment periods, you wouldn't necessarily be able to discuss what they had said. Whereas if we had it on the agenda, you would be able to. So that's something to weigh also. But obviously it's all, it's up to you. These are the options I came up with. If you have a fifth one, you can certainly discuss it. So I have a question. So if we were to, if we were to adopt number two, we get an email, we put it on the agenda, we discuss, would it then be possible to then put, invite that person that sent the email for a future meeting if we felt that there was any further discussion needed or clarification? Sure. I mean, the agenda can be, you can put that on the agenda, yeah. Or just have a kind of standard thing. We've received your comment and we'll be on the next agenda. We encourage you to watch or attend the meeting so that you can hear any discussion that goes on about it. I think if they would attend the meeting, they couldn't necessarily speak. No, but they might. I'm just thinking of ways for people to be included and feel like they're being heard. I mean, I believe an email is like socioeconomically available to everyone. This could require people to get childcare time off work if they had to come in. And so I don't think that that would be very inclusive of us to make it, you have to come and be able to speak. For a public comment period, there is a way to submit forms electronically. It would be similar to what the council does. There's a way you could call in, but that's part of why it would be more effort. There's ways to handle that where they can come in person, but they can also submit things electronically, they can also potentially call in. So it is a much larger process than just adding something to an agenda. I understand number three to not be exclusive of other options there. So public comment would be in addition to these other things that you're discussing now. Yeah, certainly. But I would suggest for those people that are concerned and have a personal issue or something that they really need to discuss, either an open forum, much like at the city council. This is not an unusual concept here, but the public can visit and share their thoughts during some restricted period of the meeting. Minute time limits or whatever, but some portion of the meeting I feel should be reserved for in-person public comments in addition to others that you may select. It's all up to you. I don't see a whole lot of downside in allowing public comments other than maybe we lengthen the meetings by 10 minutes or so if there's several people that are going to speak, but I can't imagine there being more. Even if people want to come rant about something, which I sometimes see people do at some council meetings, and if they feel heard, then good. Just any way we can give citizens more of a voice, I think that doesn't mean we have to respond. I'd be in favor of if there's an email that can be included as an agenda item for us to discuss and having a public comment during your meetings. That is where I would agree, because number three does not actually identify there to be an actual time for us to review and discuss an item. I think that that is an important part of any comment that is made by a citizen, that we actually have it on the agenda and discuss it. That might keep us out of trouble with replying to everyone to an email. Well, yeah, that's why I was thinking number four is probably a bad idea, because it's just like it could be sent to one person, they could be responding, and they could be putting themselves out to represent the board, and they don't necessarily represent the board. I completely agree. Number three would also come with the same reminder as a city council meeting that the Texas Open Meetings Act would prevent us from discussing anything that the public would show up to present. So the same rules would apply to an ethics board as the city council. The Texas Open Meetings Act will apply. You have four minutes to state whatever your concerns are about ethics in this city. And just leave it at that. Well, okay. So I think, so I guess there's maybe at least four people in favor of either three and two. But I think with three, we would have to kind of, I mean, I can ask you, Madison, I feel like we have to have a little more parameters if that would pass to like how they come in, how much time we have. And I think those are all laid out in the Open Meetings Act. We would, it would be modeled the way city council does it. I think it's like four minutes. Yeah, I don't know exactly off the top of my head, but so it might take a little bit of time. I don't know that I could promise you we could have a public comment period at the next meeting, just because I'm not sure how long it will take to get that set up. I'm wondering if we should get to kind of activate it, that people can do that while we figure out three, because like I said, like we were just saying, it'll be a little bit more to figure out how to get three implemented. So I'm hearing direction to do two and three, get three, two going as soon as possible, essentially, and then work on getting three to be implemented by in the next couple meetings. Yeah, do we need a vote on that or is it just direction that you can just go in? Direction's fine. Yeah, I think direction. Okay. I'll have to look at it because I think it might be a situation where I need to amend the procedure. Okay, so three might be something we work on, and also it'll come into our agenda item E, probably we'll have to discuss that next meeting, but for now you can do one where people redirect you to the website, or I'm sorry, two, direct to the website, you can email us, and then you can do the kind of the agenda item that you were talking about, where we can either discuss or not discuss. I think it would really make us a lot more transparent, and that's very, very important. Okay, anything else on that? All right, moving to item C, or wait, is that where we are? Yes, okay. VOE 23-007, Receive a report, hold a discussion, and take necessary action regarding potential proposals to amend City of Debt and Quotient Reforms as Chapter 2, Article 11, Ethics, and the Board of Ethics Rules and Procedures. And I guess, so, I guess this will be, you have slides on this, right? Just turn it over to you and we can start discussing? Sure, yeah, so this is a continuation of our last, our previous item. Over the last year or so, the board has created 11 proposals. We went through steps one and two, and so now we're kind of on step three. Last meeting, we talked through four of them, so today we have the rest of them. So I think they're less complicated than the ones that we have previously discussed, and so hopefully we can get through them quickly, but we'll just do them one by one, I think, and then we can do, like we did last time, direction to move forward with that, as long as that's fine with everybody. Just as a clarification, these are things we've all discussed and agreed upon, and I know there's been turnover on the board, but we've all kind of said this is how we want to go with it, so this is just the final, so I would say, if you have a concern, certainly bring it up, but I think we can move faster if we just say, yeah, that's okay, because we've already looked at it. Yeah, I think that's kind of what we did last time. Yeah, so we'll just walk, we can, I won't, yeah, we can do whatever. I can walk through them, or if you guys just want to not walk through them, we don't have to. This is just presenting the actual language that you had directed me to. I kind of think we walked through, because I think last time we might have found like a little grammar error or something, but we did. Okay, someone else did. All right, well, proposal one. This was developed in August 22. Basically, I actually identified kind of a gray area around if a city official was required to disclose that they had received a gift. So this would basically just clarify that they have to disclose that there's already a form created, it just wasn't clear in the ordinance. And it also expands that prohibition on gifts to include a city's relative, which where relative is defined to the third degree of affinity or consiguity. And so that's just how it's defined currently in the ordinance. So this is the draft language. Feedback, comments. Looks good. Any comments. All right, I think that one's pretty clear cut. Okay. Proposal two was to adjust the prohibition on subsequent work on prior projects. I was developed in June of 22, and it essentially removes a clause that exempted city officials, except for department heads, which would be like me and the city manager. From a prohibition from the excluded exempted them from a prohibition on working for compensation on a contractor arrangement that they had substantially participated in within one year, leaving their position. That makes sense. It's a little complicated. But basically it's just removing that section at the end there. Okay, so it just kind of makes it where all those people do fall under it. Great. Got it. Any comments on this one. Looks good. Number three is to adjust the financial thresholds for some of the kind of certain conflict of left conflicting interest definitions. We discussed this in August of 2022. And it's summarized on the slide, so I can answer any questions. It's not the exact language of it. This is essentially what it's doing. I wasn't at that meeting. Seems like we're letting them have more, but everyone agreed on that. Well, it's a combination. Because that 10% would be of. I guess it could be less too. Yeah. Yes. This was from August of 20 of last year. Yes. Okay. Well, I went back and I was trying to pull up some discussion of this. And I guess the question I had is, are all these proposals going to be taken together or is it possible to consider them individually or pull one? This is a real concern to me. The conflict of interest section of our code is, as many have explained to me and I fully agree, is still obsolete. Based on percentages and dollar amounts, we're about 30 years behind the curve there. And so one of the things that I would like to see happen in the future is the Benton Code adjust itself to the Model Ethics Code. And I don't have the language there, but it's much simpler. But it avoids, deliberately, it avoids percentages and dollar amounts because conflicts of interest are far more complicated than simply dollars and percentages. Well, I think that that would be a discussion for a future meeting because, I mean, I don't think it's, like I guess we could take this out if we wanted to. But as far as what we would change it to, I think maybe that should be left for another meeting because this is just like approving these and approving the letter. Well, that's all I'm asking is if this is a vote for all. We're going through each one individually. So if there's direction to not move forward, not forward this proposal to the City Council, then it would not be forwarded. I'm in favor of every other proposal on this list except this is what I'm saying. And so I don't know exactly how to address that other than to. As if a city official makes more than half a million dollars a year, then the limit would be, what, what's 20 percent? Ten percent of a couple million is $50,000, right? That's a pretty big amount of money. Yeah, I was thinking if somebody makes $100,000, 10 percent of that is $10,000. That's still a good amount. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I kind of had an issue with this one, too. But there would have to be a majority vote. Is there anybody else that wanted that had thoughts about this specific proposal? We really need to look at the conflict. And then we have it on the thing to look at the conflict of interest. That's what we've been doing. That's where this came from. So we can always go back to it. Anyway, this is what we took last year and made the city to the city council, right? That was the campaign. That was the campaign contribution. This is now due to this year. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not comfortable with that. I just, I think we need to move away from. I guess the rest of the four of you, are you all comfortable with changing it to this? Or is this something that you all don't like? I'm trying to remember how it came to the person. I am, too. I remember being a kid. I think we used model codes that you brought to us, correct? We had tables and we modeled it after the other cities. Other cities. Yeah, it's multiple other cities that reviewed and the model code, from what I remember. Yeah, sorry. I don't mean to be like questioning your deliberation. I just kind of thought, in my head, wow, going from. I remember the sites under 10%. This was the table that we reviewed as part of that discussion, am I allowed to bring this up? Yeah, Ron. Great. I can just real quickly remind you of what the model ethics code says. It very simply says that an official or employee may not use his or her official position or office to take or fail to take any action or influence others or to take or fail any action in a manner in which he or she knows or has reason to believe may result in a personal financial benefit. No percentages or dollars. If you're working on something here that the majority of the people of the city do not also share, then that is a direct conflict of interest. It's very simple. I think that there's the model code, but that's just very vague. In practice, cities are putting up numbers so you can be like, OK, well, this is a conflict. But I think that this should be a discussion for another time. I think right now we just decide, are we moving through with this proposal or not? So if anybody has a motion on this specific one or a consensus, I think there's three of us that are saying, we don't really like it, but there's four people that aren't really saying, are not really changing their minds. So I think the majority would still go with this unless I'm misrepresenting or shaking her head yes or keep it as is. I don't think you're misrepresenting what's happening. I was free of saying, no, you are not. So I think if it's four to three to keep the proposal, then I think we had decided we might vote at the end. Maybe we could have a separate vote to vote all but one. And if either of you all, if another, David, want to have a separate vote of like, keep this as a separate vote, maybe like-- We'll vote from the others. Yeah, yeah, all of them except three. And then we could all agree and then we'll do three. And if we want to vote no, you can. Yes, you can. How about that? I'm OK with it, yeah, a separate vote and three, yeah. That way we can-- noted that on my stuff. All right. All right. We discussed proposal four last week. So this is proposal five. This was developed in October of 2022. And it adds to the definition of conflicting interest a recent offer of employment as defined on the table. And it does include relatives, the city officials' relatives to the third degree of affinity and consanguinity. This was based on San Antonio's ethics ordinance toward the board's direction. So basically that's the-- sorry. OK. Any comments on this one or it looks good? It looks good. All right. I think this one's good. That might have been the only one we have fireworks on. Number six was also developed in October of 2022 and it adds to the definition of conflicting interest. Business opportunity negotiations as shown on the slide. And again, it was based on San Antonio's ethics ordinance for the board's direction. And it also includes the relatives to the third degree of affinity or consanguinity. All right. That one's good. Any comments? OK. All right. I think we can move along. I guess eight. We did seven last time. We did seven last time. And so eight is to add a recusal requirement for substantial debtors or creditor relationships. We discussed this in October of 2022 as well. That relationship is defined on the slide as having existing more than $5,000 debt with a person or business entity. You're either the debtor or the creditor. This was based on Austin's ethics ordinance. Yeah. That one looks good. Any comments? All right. I think that one's good. We discussed nine last time. So now this is 10. This one's a little more complicated. So this was developed in August and November of 22. It creates specific sanctions to be used if a complaint is found to be frivolous. These sanctions are shown on the slide. It also clarifies that it is a violation of the ethics ordinance for a complainant to publicly disclose information relating to filing a complaint. As well as it requires the city auditor to provide a copy of the accepted complaint to the complainant as well as the respondent and city attorney after it's been accepted. That just wasn't clear in the ordinance and caused a little bit of issue last time. So we're making it clear. The sanctions proposal was based on the Dallas ethics ordinance for the board's direction. And that was based on two benchmark cities that had sanctions for frivolous cities. The other nine, as well as the model code, did not have sanctions specifically for frivolity. Any comments on this one? All right. Looks good. Okay. We talked about 11 last time, but this is to discuss the rules of procedure stuff that needed to be changed along with that. So this is just kind of going over what the orders of cause process generally does. And then here is the significant language changes that Proposal 11 would make to the rules of procedure as I drafted recently. There's kind of an additional minor changes throughout the rules of procedure just to reflect that the order to show cause process has been created. To clarify that the respondent is not considered a party to an order to show cause and to clarify that the respondent is prohibited from presenting evidence and having an argument at a hearing held due to the issuance of an order to show cause. All right. I'll give everybody maybe a couple minutes to read this. All right. I think all this was just because we had not had anything before. Does anybody have comments on this language? All right. Really glad to see some language. All right. So I think that one's good. I think that's it. Okay. All right. So I guess we've kind of gone over that. But as far as I guess maybe the next, maybe we'll actually vote on the letter under the next agenda item. Yeah. So I think this one was to discuss the draft language to make any changes that you wanted to. There was no direction to make changes so we can move forward to the next item to actually vote on forwarding the proposals to the board. All right. So I think everybody's cool. Let's move on to D, BOE 23-008. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and take necessary action regarding forwarding proposals to amend the City of Dennis Ordinance Code chapter two. Oh wait. Am I reading the same one? No. Okay. They're very similar. Article 11 of Ethics and the Board of Ethics rules a procedure to city council. So we got the agenda information sheet about that and we got the proposed letter. So I mean it's basically just that this is the letter that was sent to all the board members, both on the agenda. This is the letter that we will actually send to city council. And I guess Madison, can you like, we'll send the letter and then will you present like slides of the city council meeting? Yes. So the process that will happen is we will approve the letter today in whatever form we do so and then or next meeting if you would like to delay this. And then on March 21st, we're scheduled to present all of the proposals to the board of the city council. Basically, I'll give the same presentation I've been giving to you with probably a little bit more context since they weren't there at the meetings. It will be at noon, I believe on March 21st. They have something going on later that day. And so basically we'll run through each one. They'll give direction on whether to adopt it. And then at a future meeting, the actual ordinance will be adopted that will make the changes. Does that answer your question? Yes. So I think what we will do then is we will vote on the letter as far as one, two, and four through 11, right? And are there any just like my radical things, anybody? So I just want to, this is actually it. All right. And has everybody read it or maybe we'll take a few minutes to look over it. Okay, let's take a few minutes to read it over and see if there's any problems and then we can discuss. And it will include as attachments the red lines as well. All right. [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] So I just want to make sure, and I assume it's probably correct, but on 11, the respondent can't present at the frivolity hearing, but they can submit a written sworn response to? Yes. Okay. I wasn't here, so I just want to make sure. Yeah, we had discussions about that and that's what the direction was. I just want to make sure it wasn't like that was left in and I can understand it quote unquote. And the way it's presented, any response will be included as part of the hearing packet, but they won't be able to present like an oral argument or additional evidence. Okay. [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] [ Inaudible ] So moved. All right. Motion by David and second by Annetta. And is there any more discussion? All in favor? All in favor. I am hungry for dinner, I guess. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay, so it sounds like it's unanimous. And then as far as proposal three to be included in the letter, do I have a motion for that? I guess I knew that we'd pull it from this and consider that. Is that the proper way to word that? Okay, I think so. Consider it separately maybe. Well, I think we're already considering it separately, so we'll either get a motion to exclude it or a motion to keep it in. I think. Someone else should make a move. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Is there any motions to also to include proposal three? Any of the four of you all that wanted that in? I mean, it's okay. We can disagree on things. I think this, I mean, maybe I'm missing something from our previous discussion, but it seemed like a pretty big change. Is this something that we can review at our next meeting and still include it in that proposed amendment? Yeah, we could discuss changing it to something at the next meeting and potentially still include it in the packet for March 21st, which would just be a tighter turnaround. I knew that we excluded it. Tom, did you have something? Yeah, I don't like percentages are too nebulous and fair market value is too nebulous. How do you know that? To be more specific and more clear would be appropriate. Therefore, I would agree to admit this at this time, but I do believe that there needs to be some threshold defined that we can all agree to that is clear to the citizens of the city. And not making this change, it would just remain at the current threshold. Okay, so I guess maybe so we haven't moved for three to go forward. So do you think we need a motion for three to not be in the letter and for three to be discussed maybe at the next meeting? No, I think for clarity's sake, if either make an affirmative motion to include it, or just make a call that nobody's going to do it and we can move on. Although I guess the way we've done it is that we've approved parts of the letter and not the whole letter. So maybe let's have a motion to recommend the whole the letter and striking three. That should be the motion. On an affirmative motion to, we want to send this letter but strike three out. I believe that we strike item three. Could I ask a question before we before we make a motion? So, because this was discussed at length during a previous meeting, and this is the language that we asked you to come up with. Is there, I am concerned that, because we're already discussing it either being not concrete enough or being too concrete. So, and we've come up with this as a board, but in giving you direction previously, how, how often are we going to revisit based on different makeups of the board itself? Is that a question? Is that a question? That's up to y'all. Yeah, I guess ultimately it is up to us, which means probably more. What conflict of interest is the heart and soul of an ethical thing? I would suggest that that topic is not going to die quickly. There are some that have discussed options and alternatives to that language, so it in no way is being sent down the river. So, there are some options that other cities have implemented that, as the agenda allows time-wise, will bring forward, I know, at least one or two ideas that I would like this committee to consider as an alternative to that. So, if you strike it, it's not going away forever at all. I agree with Andrea that we did discuss it at length. I think we made the best decision that we could at the time, and so part of the reason I did the motion is it seemed to push new information that maybe we didn't have at the time. So, I'm open to that, but I am concerned that there could possibly always be new information to discuss, and so that's a little bit difficult. I went back and looked, because I was trying to remember the discussion of how we got to that, and I realized that looking at the minutes, I was absent from that meeting, so I don't remember it. I'm in favor of striking it from the proposal, and if we could open that up for further discussion, I would be in favor of that. I don't want to rehash things that have already been decided. There was a call to the members that I was not able to attend that meeting, but I guess I haven't thought through this in detail. I remember being like $600 worth of property. That's not much, but I don't remember the 10% or really maybe thinking it through. Then what did we like at dinner? Income tax? That's what we do currently anyway. Well, I think that the majority has shifted toward we're leaving three out, and then we're about to get into a discussion of what to talk about at future meetings, and then we can jump back into when we're going to talk about this. I believe, Scott, you said that let's have a motion, and I think you might have started to do a motion to strike it. I move to strike number three from the letter. The motion to make the recommendations of all but three and to approve this letter as written with three stricken. That has moved to strike three and approve the letter with three stricken. Is there a second hand? I think Andrea might have gotten to second first. All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. Okay, so unanimous. I think you understand that, Madison. I guess maybe a final thing is, well I guess we'll talk about it in a second. Agenda item E, Board of BOE 23-009, receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding future meeting topics. So based on direction you've received, proposed topics include complaint, reconsideration process, comprehensive review of current sanction, definition of relative, burden of proof, and resident comment process. I think based on what we've talked to today, I almost think the resident comment, well we might have to discuss that further once we get more information about how to actually implement public comment. Okay, so do you want that to kind of be like, if you, I mean do you think you'll have the information or do you think that's something we should put off until April since you're also promoting this letter? I think that I could have potentially information on how to implement it in April for y'all to consider whether or not to do it formally. Okay, so why don't we, like we talked about earlier, we'll implement your number two as far as emailing everybody, and then as far as setting up a public comment, maybe we'll discuss that in April so you have time to kind of look into how that would have to be. Does that sound good to everyone? Can we add something? Wait, are you saying add to topics or add to specifically residential content? No, add to topics. Okay, well, yeah I think, well I was also going to say, so we've talked about that today and then we've talked about the monetary thing today, like if the monetary thing is something we want to put, potentially re-talk about and put in that letter, I think we would have to talk about it next meeting. But if we aren't worried about it being in letter or not, then we could just add to these other things and then decide which ones we want to talk about. Does that make sense? So I guess what's the consensus as far as the 600 changing it to 10%? Do we want to discuss that next meeting for the letter or have a post letter discussion? I would like to discuss it next meeting so that at all possible we can include a recommendation in the letter. Alright, looks like everybody's shaking their heads. So I think that will be March for sure, so we'll have to have discussion about that and potential language to approve to add to the letter. So that'll probably take, maybe the whole meeting? Yeah, potentially. So I think some of these other, maybe burden will prove in April. Yeah, because I'm wondering, the residential comment, I don't think that will take long once you know how to do it. I think we'll just all say yes, let's do it that way. Yeah, I think that'll take maybe 10 minutes just to explain it all and give you feedback on some potential direction. I just don't know what it'll look like, what will need to be decided, but it shouldn't take very long. So yeah, so I think, so March will do the 10%, 600, decide what we want to do on that, decide who wants to go on the letter, final approval of the letter, with or without that. April will definitely do comment. And then we have these other topics, and you're saying we're going to add a topic on here? What are, what's that? I was looking at the section on alternates, and I think it's 2-227 Section G. It is really confusing. Like alternates here at the meeting? It's clear that alternates rotate onto hearing boards, but it's not clear about whether or not they're supposed to be attending meetings regularly. So it's really confusing. I read over it a bunch, and I'd like to at least look at it again just so that we're clear on it. Okay, I guess, yes. Well, go ahead if you were going to. No. I would second what Amanda just said, because going back over the five years since this ordinance passed, every internal auditor, Umesh DeWal and Craig, every internal auditor has had a different interpretation of what alternates are allowed to do. Can they come to the meeting? Can they talk? Can they vote? I think it's pretty consistent, if you're an alternate that can come to the meeting, because I know, like in the past, they've asked me when I've been chaired, like, you know, I'll just usually tell them, like, just kind of, all the alternates just kind of rotate, so it's kind of, it's fair, and then if you're, and then you have like the seven people that can be at the meeting, and if you're an alternate that isn't at the meeting, then you sit. Well, if you let me finish. No, it's been a rather tall reason. Alright, well then let's just, alternates is something that we can discuss at another meeting. So why don't we, tonight, we're not going to discuss alternates, we're going to discuss what we want to talk about in April. So is there another one of these topics that we want to talk about in April that we haven't discussed yet? So is that, is that approved then, what you're suggesting? Well, it's just direction, so, so we put alternates in the pile, and then we decide which one we want to talk about in April. Yeah. So is there anything that, does anybody have something they want to discuss in April? Now there's a couple things on there that have been on there for a long time, and I may have brought one of them up, but I'm not, I'm not, um. Yeah, there's, these are the things that have been on there. I think I brought up the definition of relatives, so strike it. I mean, unless somebody thinks that's really important. I know it's been discussed before, back when Charlotte was on the board, and she gave us all the charts that she uses in family law for relatives. Just that the model codes list out, they list out all the possible relatives, and so if you don't know what consequences it means, you know, to a layman reading the ethical code, it's probably like, what is that? Yeah, we all have dictionaries, but anyway, but I don't think it's terribly important, honestly. All right, so is there anything that anybody wants to discuss in April, besides the resident, resident, resident comment process? And I would really vote for, so we're doing burden-approved. So my understanding was to push what's burden-approved to April. Oh, okay. So that we could discuss, and then also have public comment discussion. Okay. And then so that next meeting we can discuss the financial considerations and then potentially including something in the letter that's going to counsel in March 21st. Okay, well then that sounds good, and then maybe the last item for April is just, is there anything we need to discuss in May? Right, yeah, we'll have, we'll continue having this item at the end of each meeting. Okay, well then I guess that's a plan, right? Any other comments? So we're going to put alternate instead of the May, maybe? Yeah, that'll be discussed at the end of the meeting in April. Okay. All right, okay, so I think everything's, there's no more comment on that. It's 6/23 and we can adjourn. - I think these are leaving.