Today is June 5th, 2023, and this is the Board of Ethics meeting, and we have a quorum present,
so we will begin with Item A, BOE 23-24, Approval of Minutes, from May 1st, 2023.
Speak before that item or not?
Before the minutes.
Not until the items.
Not until the item.
Okay.
Yeah, we're good.
So the minutes, do I hear a motion to approve it?
I move to approve the minutes.
Hold a second.
It's been moved by Dustin Havlick and seconded by Rob Reiner.
No ma'am.
Oh, I'm sorry, by Tom Priner.
So all in favor?
Aye.
Any nays?
The minutes pass unanimously.
So Item BOE 23, I believe we, do we have a speaker for this one, or I'm not clear what?
Item.
Oh, B and E?
V.
Okay.
We have a speaker, I'm going to permit this person to speak for four minutes, if someone
can, has a timer that they can.
I can time.
I don't know.
Okay.
So do you want the comment before the item, or do you want it after?
It has to be before.
It has to be before?
Yeah, we appreciate the comment before.
We have a parliamentarian here.
Okay, so it's, and so you have the, this is Neil Grantz, and if you will come to the
podium and give your name and address, and your four minutes will begin.
Yeah, thank you.
My name is Neil Grantz, my address is 1108 North Locust, Denton County, Texas.
I just drove in from Oklahoma City, so I'm going to stand here as long as you'll allow
me.
I've been sitting for the last six.
I wanted to address the board on two items this evening, first on B, and then when it
comes to E, I'd like to talk about that.
With regard to what is item B regarding public comment, I have to tell you, I was, don't
worry, your neils and ratings are safe, but I've been kind of sneaking in and watching
what's going on in the board here, watching the broadcasts that go out to the public,
and it's caused me some great, some great, great concern.
Issues that should take about five to ten minutes with virtually no questions, they're
taking weeks, and they shouldn't.
And I was, I do recall several people talking about city government said that lack of pragmatism
always means outside influence, especially when they don't have proper advice.
My comment on the issue of whether or not the public can come in and speak to you and
how long, the only issue here is how long, whether or not they come in under 551.007
of the Texas Government Code said that if you're a city or county and you have any subdivision
or any appointed committee by either one of those governing bodies, the city council or
county commissioners court, then they have to allow public commentary.
This is a no-brainer, and this should be approved unanimously.
Why?
Because it's hard enough to get people involved in city government.
We definitely need them coming down here and talking about these things.
And a board of ethics is one of the most interactive or should be the most interactive with the
public of any of the boards and commissions of a city or a county.
Not to mention, it's just good common sense.
You know, inviting people down, regardless of what their points of view may be, at least
they're being heard.
And that, I've had a lot of people talk to me about how they don't mind, when they've
been heard, they don't mind whether you follow them or you don't follow them, or you take
their advice and don't take their advice.
The fact is you're listening to them.
And that's the first thing.
So, I don't know how much time I have back.
If I do have any, I'll give it back to you, or can I save it for the next time.
But in any event, we need to be careful because this law, and I don't know who advises y'all
or how you get your advice, do you get a briefing or whatever, this shouldn't even have come
up because the law was passed over seven years ago and it's been in effect since then.
So the issue about how it got on as an agenda item, I have no idea because it shouldn't
be.
It should be, hey, the law says you've got to do it, you've got to do it.
Unless or somebody wants to start advocating some kind of anarchy and I don't think we
can do that either.
So, thank you for your time and I hope to speak to you in a few more minutes.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Durantz.
Okay, I'll open the floor for discussion on item B.
Madam Chair.
Yes.
If we wanted to ask a question from Mr. Durantz, we can do that.
I don't think we're supposed to do that.
I don't know.
You can after the report.
Okay.
The report first.
Okay.
If y'all are discussing, y'all can call and ask some questions if you want.
So, I just have a quick update on where we're at with implementing the public comp period
that you gave direction for.
As of today, obviously we have a sign-up sheet that's out that the speakers may sign up on
to speak on agenda items.
During the July 18th regular council meeting, we will present the limits on time and speaker
number that y'all gave us direction for last meeting.
And then as of August 7th, those limits will be in place as long as that's adopted by council.
E-comment will be available online.
And then sign-ups for presentations will be in as well.
So, I can answer any questions on where we're at with that.
So, the big thing we have to decide is what time limit we want.
Right, which you gave direction for last time, which was three minutes for both agenda item
comments and then presentations and then limit of five speakers for presentations.
I'm sorry, how long?
Three minutes.
And what was the five?
Five speakers for presentations, which are items that are not on the agenda.
Any questions on that?
I don't necessarily need direction, but you can give some.
Do you want to discuss anything?
Any comments or?
Are we now open for when we can ask questions?
Yes.
Go ahead, Bob.
What is your question?
To Mr. Durrance, if I may ask.
Because of your experience, city council, PNZ, the past and all, what time limit for
a committee of this size do you think would be appropriate and would be too arduous,
especially if we had five speakers come in at one time on one topic?
Well, first of all, let me say that the law says that it is up to you all to make that
determination, but you don't have to have, in fact, you're mandated not to, you don't
have to have any city council approval for anything you're doing.
And I don't mean to imply by that, but your experience being in that, I'm just looking
at a time, what do you think?
Yeah, I think it's three to four minutes, just personal opinion, I think three to four
minutes for any kind of commentary is just fine, you can probably get a cost in that.
But with presentations, if somebody has something, evidence they want to provide to you, presentations
should be allowed at least ten.
And I'll tell you why, because sometimes we deal with subjects that aren't just very,
very black and white, and they're not very clear.
And sometimes people need to explain why they're taking a position on a particular, in your
case, particular portion of the ethics code, maybe even a matter which is before the committee.
So I would encourage ten minutes, I know when I was in city council, I answered your question
more directly, you know, making people do presentations in four minutes, when they were
talking about zoning right next to their house, you know, they all started dividing it up,
parsing it out, you know, and they'd divide it up and everybody would start taking their
three minutes and then somebody would say, no, you were supposed to talk about this or
that, and it just kind of encouraged just kind of general mayhem in the chamber.
You know, that's not a good idea.
Give someone time to develop their case.
Now, the other thing I would caution and also tell you about too is, and that's for basically
the chairman, whoever the chairman of the committee is, if you've got somebody up here
just ranting and raving and not, you know, saying the same thing over and over, they
should be allowed to step in and say, no, we're going to preside over, I preside over
this meeting and we understand your point, we get it, you don't have to tell us five
times, because there are people who think that you have to keep telling people things
again and again and again and again, and that's not true.
Most people, especially if you're bright enough to be on the commission or the city council,
you're going to get it in the first hour and then if they have questions, let them ask
questions too, and I would encourage that as well.
Thank you.
I'm not sorry.
Any other questions?
No?
Just one other comment.
One of the things that I find reading that 551.07 that is more specific for possibly
larger governmental bodies is that it's very specific about addressing an action item at
that meeting.
Oh, yes.
Now, from a standpoint of an ethics committee, there may be some citizens out there that
have an issue that they want to bring to our attention.
You know, our open forum at the city council meeting is broken down to scheduled items
and then unscheduled, but can't be discussed.
But my only, I'm just throwing out for discussion, is should we just make it to where any topic
that a citizen wishes to make this committee aware of?
Otherwise, how...
Can I say one thing about that to kind of, the statute itself, you're correct, the statute
says that you're only allowed to have public commentary on items that are on the agenda,
which means you can do what most city councils and other commissions do, and that is set
up in open mic time.
And you do it at the beginning and you can limit people to two to three minutes and that
kind of thing.
But if somebody wants to speak to an item on the agenda, and then you also have to say,
if somebody wants to speak to an item on the agenda, you have to talk about do they do
it immediately before, do they deliberate and then take public commentary, or do you
just put all the public commentary, regardless of what's on the agenda, at the beginning?
Obviously, I think it would be best to take it item by item because then everybody likes
up.
What you're talking about is doing an open mic thing, which is purely up to you all.
If you want to do that, that's great.
So are you suggesting that 007 includes the open mic?
No, it does not address that.
See, it doesn't address that at all.
It just says, if you have an item on the agenda and somebody wants to come in and give public
comment about it, they can.
And here's one thing, you've got the decision to make as to how long and do they do it before,
during, and after, that kind of thing.
Where on the agenda would they do that?
But they have to be allowed to speak.
But that's a very good point.
Well, so you're saying that it would not exclude someone wanting to suggest an item or a future
agenda?
Well, those have to be done by committee members normally, normally.
And if somebody comes in and says, you know, I want to talk about this particular section
of the Ethics Code or something like that, they can't just come in here willy-nilly and
start commenting on it.
They would need to talk to their members of the committee and say, we need an agenda item
on this.
And then I think, I don't know what the rule you all have about who can bring up an issue
I would presume anyone could ask that something be placed on the agenda, and then it could
be addressed that way.
Because like I said again, ignoring the public, you do it at your own peril.
And that's why I've never had anybody approach me at all at my city service or any other.
And if they said they wanted to see something on the agenda, I said, oh, no, we're not going
to do that.
No.
You put it on, you ask it to be put on, you consider it.
And you might say, bad idea, we're not going to do it.
You might say, good idea, it can't be.
That's, again, back to letting people speak.
I'm sorry, Jason.
Anything else?
Do we need any more discussion on this topic?
I'll just add that, I mean, I think we've covered that in our last meeting, allowing
public comments on agenda items limited to three minutes per item.
And then the in-person presentation for members of the public, that allows for comment on
things that are not on that agenda.
So I think we've addressed all of the items.
So I guess we don't need to take any action on this item.
Unless you have a different direction from last week.
Anybody has a different direction?
So we're moving on to item C, number BO-23-026.
Receive a report, hold a discussion, and take necessary action regarding proposed
amendments to the ethics ordinance and board of ethics rules and procedure.
Okay, so during the last meeting, the board gave direction to the staff to bring back
any board proposals for the 2023 packet of proposed amendments that did not receive
direction from the city council in April.
So I'm just going to run through each proposal that didn't receive direction.
The direction options are essentially allow the proposal to just remain rejected,
is the language we use, but just allow it to not come back, not put it on a future
agenda item at this time.
You could also ask to put it on the potential agenda topics for the future,
which is what we'll talk about in the future agenda items section.
Or we could just forward it back to the city council as it was originally written,
if that's what you would like to do.
So those are kind of the three options for direction at this point in time.
So what is your pleasure?
Oh, I was going to run through each one.
Okay, sorry.
That's all right.
Go ahead.
Okay.
So the first one was proposal four, which was developed by the board in October
of 2021 and was included in the June -- originally included in the June 2022
packet of amendments.
It was postponed at that point for clarity, which is in its -- the campaign
contributions as part of the conflict of interest prohibition.
So basically it's what you see on this slide.
During April of this year, the city council had some confusion on if the
election cycle period that's in the conflict of interest definition included
essentially both the most recent and the current one.
And then previously there had also been some concerns from council that the
$500 limit was too low.
So that's kind of the discussion -- a small summary of the discussion about this.
So what is your -- Madam Chair, if I may ask, so are you telling us that the
city council did not do any action on this proposal?
Correct.
In April of this year, there was no direction to move forward with -- no
direction on this proposal.
And was it because of those two primary questions that came up or issues, that
were being -- the timeframe and then they thought maybe the $500 was too low?
Those were the primary things discussed during that meeting.
So Madam Chair, I'd like to ask, are we then, as it put upon us, to take those
suggestions from the city council and try to tweak it, or do we just say we're
going to give it back to you and make you make those changes?
Let me answer that in a more general way, because I was looking at these ones
that got -- that they didn't want us to move forward with.
I think they're kind of little details that could be better solved by our
paying attention to other parts of the code of ethics.
So from where I sit, I'm not bothered that we were not asked -- that we weren't
encouraged to move forward on any of them.
Because I think ethics is bigger than some of these things.
So they -- I don't think we brought this up.
I think this came from city council.
Is that correct?
The campaign was brought forward originally in October of 2021 by a board
member.
Okay.
It was discussed and then voted to be included in the 2022 packet of the
post-members.
And that was in the throes of the election, right?
It was originally presented in October of 2021.
Which was -- and the election was a month later.
Because that was the year we had the announcement.
Maybe.
I don't remember.
Yeah, it was.
There's a lot that goes around with the elections.
Honestly, if they didn't want us to move forward with it, that's my opinion.
But I want to hear what you guys think.
Do you mind speaking to, like, where we could kind of revisit this in a
different part of the code from what you've seen?
Okay.
Make the definition of conflict of interest broader.
I guess to me would be the bigger thing.
Because, you know, technically when you're looking at ethics, you know,
the reason we have a board is that these things are very gray.
And so, in my opinion, $500 is a lot of money for a city election.
And although lately that's not been true, but I'd like to get back to the
point where we're not spending so much money on city elections.
But that's just my opinion.
What do the rest of you think?
I suppose my good question is, the question is, following your lead, Madam Chair,
I would agree, we'll just leave this alone.
So do we just lay it on the table or just dismiss it?
There's no motion necessary for us to give --
That's a good question.
-- this body the --
I won't ask our problem entirely.
No.
I mean, if you're not going to do anything with it, then there's no action.
Just a little bit.
Yeah.
Very well.
Dustin?
I think this is -- I went back and watched the city council video,
and I think this is the one where a lot of the discussion was around the
intent of this proposal to limit the influence of PACs in local elections.
And one of the comments that stood out to me was that even if -- their
impression was that we were adding this so that a member of a PAC -- if a
member of the PAC that has a pending matter before the council, that council
member who received that contribution from the PAC would have to recuse
himself.
And the comment was, that's not the case.
A PAC does not have a pending matter.
A member of the PAC may, but they wouldn't have to recuse themselves.
And that was, like, a lot of the discussion.
And I completely understand that, but this is written specifically as an
individual business entity or other organization.
So it's not realizing that a PAC is not going to have a pending matter
because they're not really doing business in the city.
And an individual that is a member or a supporter or contributor to a PAC
could, but they would be separate from this recusal requirement.
I don't -- I understand that there is some concern over how that wouldn't
work in that case.
But I don't understand why there was so much concern over just omitting this
completely and saying, well, because it doesn't work in a specific instance,
we are just going to not have any direction on this.
We're not going to consider this.
Right.
And so that -- I mean, to me, I read this.
And other than the timing of the election cycle, the wording on that,
like, I understand -- I did not understand that before.
I understand that partially now after their very lengthy discussion on it.
So if there is a way to fix that part of it so there's no potential
misunderstanding of when this applies, maybe we can do that.
But I don't -- I hate to just throw this out and say, well,
they didn't give us directions to work in it.
Not include this.
Okay.
So how would you fix it?
I would fix it by either changing how we define the election cycle
or resubmitting it to them and maybe with some different commentary or discussion.
I don't know how to -- I just -- I don't want to get into a habit of spending
a lot of time trying to make good faith revisions to the code,
handing it to counsel, and then it just gets shot down.
And so we don't do anything with that to try and fix what we spend a lot of
time in these meetings talking about how there are problems with our code.
And a lot of our -- since I've been on this board, almost all of the time,
I've spent in these meetings is fixing stuff in the code,
not applying any of it or reviewing a complaint.
It's -- we have this code that we're trying to make it work.
And all of our effort to do that is just sort of getting --
I think it might get a very different -- a different response now.
So I'm hearing that you would be in favor of keeping it.
I see some head notes.
If the -- all right, sorry.
If we -- the concern is the election cycle confusion,
we could potentially change the most recent to say the current
and most previous or something like that,
if that's what the intention of the board is to have.
So if that is --
Yeah, we could tighten the language, yeah.
I definitely hear what Dustin is saying.
We spend a lot of time on that.
So if I understood the three options you gave us,
I don't hear anyone saying we should reject it.
I don't hear anyone saying we should forward it as it is.
So I thought the other option is postpone
and make these potential changes that are being discussed.
So --
That's a good idea.
Which would mean to me putting on the agenda of a future meeting.
That sounds good.
Is that the direction?
Yeah.
Okay, do we need to make a motion for that?
Yeah, it's just a direction.
Okay, consensus is we're happy --
Postpone.
-- postponing and tightening.
Okay, thank you all for your comments.
Okay, so do we have any --
Yes, there's several.
Yes.
Proposal six was originally developed in October of 2022
and went out to the definition of conflicting interest,
recent business opportunity negotiations,
which was originally defined as seen on the slide.
It was based on San Antonio's ethics ordinance.
And during the April 2023 discussion,
the city council was generally concerned
that there was not necessarily a clear definition
of what recent business --
what business opportunity negotiations was.
Okay, how do you guys feel about this one?
Need to move forward as is or tweak it?
What I would like to comment on is, I mean,
you've had several members that are routinely guiding us
or making comments about ethics code being more broad
in order to be more effective.
And what we're getting from the city council on all of these
is the language isn't tight enough.
The language isn't tight enough.
So those things, I mean --
Yeah.
So which -- and that is a problem, right?
Again, I think going forward it might be different right now
because we have had a very split.
At the time this went to council, it was extremely split.
But yeah, but I do -- I think that our --
I think that the consensus on the committee
is that we want to make it broader
and we want to make it fit better.
And we have some people who don't.
No.
Miss yourself.
Back yourself.
One of the things in this proposal
that kind of even goes back to the previous ones
we just talked about, and I've mentioned this before,
this word "pending matter" has always bothered me in this code
because this would suggest that if a matter is pending,
it would exclude any future items.
In other words, it could be something on next week's agenda.
And so this whole pending matter issue
has been a problem for me since the very start.
I don't know if there's better language there.
But even in that last one, when you mentioned those two words,
because the universal model code just says any issue
either implies either it's present
or it's a future item that might show up next week.
I think this kind of rules out --
The definition of pending matter is on our list of future agenda items.
Yeah.
So the word "pending matters" is always troubling.
And so I don't know if I have a solution in terms of this proposal.
This might be one where looking at the pending matter
would take care of this,
because I was thinking some of these things would just go away
if we have a broader code.
The problem is this opens a whole new can of worms
about having to go back into the definitions of our code
and discuss whether or not pending matter is --
So that's opening a can of worms that I'm not ready to do right now.
But for that reason alone, I'm not in favor of either of these.
I concur.
Are you saying just let this die?
Pardon the expression.
Whatever term you want, what was the first one?
Reject.
I would concur with you on rejecting this at this time.
I'm not ready to provide alternatives or other ideas here,
but this has bothered me.
This whole pending matter that we're pending.
So I'm here with Dustin.
We have spent time on these items,
and we felt that these are important items that need to be addressed
if we need to, if we want to.
Then I would move to or give the direction that we will do the same thing.
We'll revisit.
Put it in line behind once we talk about pending matter.
Yes, and then discuss this if we're, you know,
what language changes we need to be making to make this effective.
That sounds good.
What about -- is that consensus for --
I agree with Andrea.
And Tom?
I think consensus is postponed.
Is that postponed?
Postponed.
Seven was to add a recusal requirement for client relationships,
as defined on the screen, to the conflict of interest definition.
The State Council was mostly concerned about there not being a clear definition
of what client relationship meant.
There were some specific questions about, well,
is a tax preparer considered a client?
Is an auto dealer things like that?
So that was the discussion at that time.
Any questions?
I'm going to put it back on the agenda.
I think it's in the same category.
So what are you guys saying?
We've put a lot of time into this.
Exactly.
You know, I'm not -- we did this for a reason.
And we all were -- we all had concerns.
We discussed it.
And I think that we just need to either tighten the language,
or, you know, and have a discussion about that.
Yeah.
Okay, so --
And maybe it would be -- sorry, I didn't raise my hand.
Maybe it would be important for us to look at the definition
of client relationship.
In my opinion, we just define it with what's literally listed there.
Yeah.
I'm sure if I may ask.
Yes.
Looking at proposal four, which is the $500,
there's no -- no, I've just -- I apologize.
Back to seven, there's no monetary amount here,
let's say a contributor were to give to them.
I'm just wondering if -- I think proposal four may be strong enough
to take care of six and seven that we are now discussing,
only because there's a monetary number.
I just -- I'd like to hear from what you think on that.
Am I off or what?
I think the big difference there is proposal four is a campaign contribution.
Proposal seven is for a client relationship.
And so like if I engage you in some sort of contract to provide services to me,
then we would have a client service provider relationship,
which would be different.
It wouldn't be a campaign contribution.
But if they gave a campaign contribution while they were a client.
Right.
I mean, I guess that would fall under both of those things.
Some of the discussion in the council review of this was around
establishing what is a -- is there some threshold there?
If I have someone come and trim my trees in my house,
then I am their client.
We have a client service provider relationship now.
Would I have to recuse myself from some sort of --
like if they bring something before council because they bought some property
and they want to change the zoning on that or whatever it may be.
So there was concern where there -- some of the discussion, I'll paraphrase, was around
we should want the council members to continue doing business
and paying for services, which I think was completely missing our intent with this proposal.
Our intent here was more of what Annette talked about, like the gray area stuff.
We know, after sitting on this board, we know that it would be very easy
for someone to set up some sort of contract and then provide some sort of service
to someone who is in a position of authority to make decisions.
And then that could influence those decisions that they make.
Like that is something that could go wrong.
We're not talking about just normal course of action.
I live in this community, so I'm going to hire someone who also lives in this community
and works here to do some work, and I'm not going to let that influence me.
I think we know what we're trying to get away from here.
And a lot of the discussion was like -- it was almost like very defensive.
Like someone is going to use this against me in my position to --
To hurt us, though.
Right.
And that could certainly happen with any of this stuff.
But that's -- we have to have -- we have to establish some kind of boundary
for what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.
And we're in this spot where, like from the discussion that I listened to by council,
they don't want any sort of gray area on what is okay and not okay according to the ordinance.
They want specific rules, dollar amounts, very clear definitions.
And we've spent a tremendous amount of time trying to clean up language
and write definitions that make sense.
And I think we've done a decent job of that in a lot of cases.
But I don't think we can write a bulletproof code that's going to work forever.
But to give an example, nobody would call it unethical if you shop at, say,
a grocery store like Kroger's all the time and you spend all your grocery money there.
But I think it would be called into question if the owner of that store was your business partner
and they came up with something.
Then you should certainly engage yourself.
I don't know why that's so difficult to understand.
Wechsler's example on this is a dry cleaner.
You spend thousands of dollars on an annual basis at your dry cleaner.
And you discuss business.
So this is where this really gets a little sticky on professional relationship.
Well, he may feel he's a professional dry cleaner.
That's why you have a board.
And that is exactly what I'm sensing here.
I'm sensing that City Council does not trust us,
that if those matters are actually coming in front of us, that we will...
Some people on City Council don't trust us.
And I will say when we take things to them, we will still have a couple people who won't.
And if I may, I think that's what I was meaning to say earlier.
This is as clear as I think it needs to be.
I don't think parsing it down any further would be of any benefit.
So are we saying postpone?
Postpone.
So we have 100% consensus.
Now, Madam Chair, I'd like to throw out, because we are postponing quite a bit,
I don't want us to be misunderstood by the council or anyone else watching this.
We're not kicking this can down the road.
We're looking to try to figure out a thesaurus to find the right word we want
to make it palatable for the council, which is a political animal.
And so they are looking at money.
They want to look at...that's the point that I don't cross.
And the gray area that I think Destin brought up very well, they don't want gray area.
It's part of the expression black or white, because the gray area is where they all get in trouble.
And so that's what I see.
I think they see gray area here, and that's their concern.
I just don't know what the words are that makes it gray.
I guess my thinking is these are kind of oral issues, and there are some bigger ones
that I think would clean some of this up.
And then I think we may come back and put this stuff in.
A thousand stab wounds do the same thing, Madam Chair.
Yeah.
I think we have proposed one right here for this one.
Another page.
All right.
This one, it was to add a substantial debtor-creditor relationship as defined
on the slide being $5,000 to the conflict of interest definition.
I think their concern...their concern seemed to be that they wanted to...
they didn't want to be restricted on doing business in the city.
Yeah.
That is the same thing we were just talking about.
Another press phone?
Yes, Andrea.
It is 610.
It's been 40 minutes, and we're revisiting things.
I'm going to say, can we get the direction to revisit all of these and clean them up
and put them in order back on the agenda and move through them?
Have I asked how many more we've done?
Because these were all topics that we all felt were important.
Three more?
Including this one.
We just have three more, if that would go on.
I'd like to go ahead and do the other three.
I understand what you're saying.
So is there a direction to do it on this one?
But what consensus?
I could be persuaded to forward it as is, but I'll go along with the group.
I think it's the number that's here.
I mean, today's inflation.
Can we talk like this out loud, Madam Chair?
You can do any recognition of thought.
Madam Chair?
Yes?
Oh, if I may.
I think it's the number, because today, the way we are with the economics
and the financials and all, 5,000 used to be a big number.
There was clearly fear.
Yeah, 5,000 is not a number anymore.
I mean, we've got credit cards up toughing almost, passing 20,000.
Personal credit card, 20,000.
This is almost like the $500.
I think that number should be larger.
And I think that that may have been the issue.
I guess my opinion, sorry.
Again, I think it would have a different response with this council.
I think the number may still be a problem.
That's what I would like to see the proposal, not to look at that number.
Good point.
Okay.
That was supposed to be done.
Proposal 10 was to create specific sanctions for furloughed complaints.
What was your question, Scott?
Did you get a majority in the consensus?
Yes.
Okay.
I checked for head nods.
This is Proposal 10.
It was to have specific sanctions for furloughed complaints.
The concern appeared to be just having specific sanctions for furloughed complaints at all.
I'm sorry, say that again.
It seemed to be council's concern was just to have this at all,
because they didn't want to discourage people from --
they didn't want to, one, discourage people from submitting complaints,
and two, bar people from submitting complaints.
I pray you will speak.
What's your thinking on this?
I'm not ready to dismiss this, because this is something that we work really,
really hard on in terms of making sure that just from experience,
that the frustration of the board was there, that the complaints were made in a way,
and we had absolutely no teeth in our recommendations.
So I feel that this absolutely needs to be forwarded to council again.
Again, and I totally agree with what Andrea was saying,
I do think that if we would look at that burden of proof issue,
which I know we're going to discuss in another thing,
so I'll have some more comments for that, this would go away.
Yeah, I think you're right.
Would it be just kind of spitballing when we come back to the agenda organization,
burden of proof, and then we tack this on to that same discussion to look at again,
so we have an idea of what's going to happen when we look at this a second time?
I just like we've got bigger fires to think about.
Okay, and then the last one was to create the artificial cause process,
and this is very similar to the sanctions they didn't want to discourage.
They didn't want to create more of a process for people who submitted complaints in good faith
to be scared to submit.
I'll respond to after burden of proof discussion.
That was it, that was the end.
Okay, so we're going to move on to item B.
Item B, OU23-27, item D, receiver report, hold a discussion and give direction regarding a redesign
of the annual ethics ordinance training required by the city of Denton Code Ordinances,
article 11, section 2-276, try again.
So a quick background, the ethics ordinance requires me as a city auditor to approve a training program
that provides an introduction and overview of the expectations, mandates, and prohibitions
outlined in the ordinance based on anticipated changes from what council did give direction to go forward with.
I have been working to redesign the annual ethics training with the intention to create a presentation
that can be easily updated in the future, shorten the content so that can be presented in person regularly
to the city officials annually, and then also so that it can be posted,
like, re-record each slide individually so that it's also easy to update an online video.
So my hope is that this will ease the annual training process.
I included the draft training in your agenda information if you have any feedback or questions on it.
It doesn't necessarily need to be approved by all, but I was looking for a note that you had.
I know it was running short on time, so if you would like to provide any by email after this,
I would be happy to see it.
Ready, Chip?
Yes, Tom?
I always think it's important to start off with why this is important.
So if you could add at the beginning, why are ethics so important within the city?
Support citizen confidence in the city.
That's why we're doing this.
Well, it's back to Weichler and all his writings about the importance of ethics
and the difference between ethics and ordinances.
And this kind of gets back to where we're getting stuck in the mud on some of these things that we've had to pass on,
because we're trying to play to a city council's understanding of what ethics are and aren't,
and a lot of times they're not right trying to set dollar values and all this,
and so this is why we're getting stuck so often.
Ethics is not always about $600 or 5% because there are lots of ethics issues that come up in other cities
where there's nothing on paper, but it still goes to a hearing.
First of all, Madison, I know you put a bunch of time into this and I thank you for that,
because our code does not say what I think a lot of people believe it says,
so I like the shortened idea because it's terrible to read through that whole thing
and then miss things because you didn't know it didn't say that.
That said, when you really shorten it, it really does make our code look horrible.
And one of the things that I dislike the most is the aspirational section of our code,
because it is so subjective and it is so open to misinterpretation.
And in most cities the aspirational code is a bit more specific
and it says things like, "Thou shalt not slander thy neighbor."
And I know that's one of the points that Borquist makes in his biblical terms,
but in his training video that I guess we won't be watching anymore,
because the first time I read that I looked in the code, I'm like, it didn't say anything about slander.
The other part is those aspirational things are so vague
that I think they're going to be just like the crummy, crummy, crummy code we used to have about ten years ago
where it was so vague that one of the council members filed a complaint
against one of the women based on something she said on Facebook.
And of course there was nothing to it, but it was just sad.
So I like those aspirational things. I think I know what behaving professionally means,
but I'm not sure that Andrea has the same definition that I do.
So it's not very clear, and it's one of the other things about this code that just drives me up the wall,
because it's not clear, and if someone filed a complaint on that I think it would end up being what we would consider frivolous.
People get mad, especially in elections.
A complaint on?
Something in the aspirational part. Can you flip to the other part of that?
The little slide that you put together.
Again, I thought it was vague, but it just shows how narrow our code is.
Oh, you wanted this part.
Yes.
Conduct yourself in a way that fostered public trust, projecting personal and organizational integrity.
I mean, those are wonderful things.
Avoid behavior that calls your medicine to question.
There's nothing real clear and specific about that, and it could be the basis for an ethics complaint, but I think it would just be...
I believe that the code says that these cannot be the basis for an ethics complaint.
So, why are we highlighting that?
It's required for me to highlight that as part of your ordinance.
And it speaks to exactly why our ethics is important, right?
I mean, these ethical expectations and why are they important, I think they go hand in hand.
Adding, so why are these things important?
I mean, in a way, it seems redundant, and it seems like it should be common sense.
So, why are these are important?
But I do agree that it might be good to just highlight.
And if I may, I think if our goal is to go more towards addressing the gray, this is the gray, right?
I'm concerned that the kind of black and whiteness is starting to move into this, but this is, I think, the gray, the larger area we're looking for.
These can't be the basis for a complaint, but they should underpin your approach as a city official.
I love that bullseye example that I got at an ethics program I had to attend where, you know, when you're trying to be ethical,
you're trying to shoot the arrow at the bullseye, and sometimes you're going to shoot outside of it.
But if your motives are good and your intentions are not bad, then you're not going to get in trouble.
But if you always shoot your arrow outside of the target, you're going to get in trouble.
And so I think there's a, you know, kind of a sideways thing of you do that stuff all the time, and that's where the problems come in.
And that's gray. That's very gray.
Okay. Any other comments on this?
I think I like the new training, and I think it makes sense to do it the way you laid out so it's easy to update and change
and matches with the changes to the ordinance. So I like it.
I do like having presentations that will be up in everybody. Is that going to fall under you?
Yeah. Another thing under other duties.
Yeah, it's mostly this.
Yeah, my thought was that I would try to work with the boards if they, well, I would, I think with council,
my goal is to try to get in a meeting and do it so that they're all there, and it can occur annually after the elections in May.
And then with the boards, either have, this is all kind of a plan, they either have a one that like invite people to come
or try to work with some of the other boards to come be a part of their meeting as well. That's the idea.
Right. I was sensitive to your talking.
This is part of my other duties as assigned.
Okay. Are we ready to encourage you to move forward?
If you do have any other feedback that you would like, please just shoot me an email.
I saw, I see four heads nods over here with about Ronda and Tom. Are you okay with it?
Yeah, I'm like, no.
Let's go. Do it.
I think there's an agenda. This is a good idea to meet.
Okay. We'll move into item E, BOE 23-28.
Receive a report, hold a discussion, and take necessary action regarding the ethics complaint process.
Detailed in the code of ordinances, Chapter 2, Article 11, Ethics, Section 2-281, Meetings, and Section 2-282, Disposition.
I think we have a comment.
Do we have a comment from Mr. Grintz?
Yes.
He will come up. We'll start your format for minutes.
First of all, quit jumping up and down over there in the corner.
Let me tell you all something. If conflicts of interest are some kind of a mystery to somebody in here,
you all should have had a definition in about five minutes.
Call the city attorney's office. They can't come down here and explain it to you in five minutes.
Then they need to hang up their license.
And there's definitions all over the law and all over business and all over the place,
including city councils and city government, as to what a conflict of interest is.
You're right. It's broadly graded. You cannot, shoot, $499 makes you ethical, but $500 doesn't?
$2,000 makes you ethical, but $5,000 doesn't?
No, no, no, no, no. Don't run off those and those rabbit trails. That's just ridiculous.
A conflict of interest is shown, has been defined forever. And I'll tell you one case.
Louis Pandyce went home and found out his wife.
I think you're on.
Am I on frame? Okay. Then I'll return.
But this is not a mystery. This should have been said in about ten minutes. Okay?
So what I wanted to speak to you about is the system that you're having here.
I looked at the ordinance, and the ordinance says that the complainant has the burden of proof of showing this.
This is completely foreign to Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence since like 1066 all the way up through the day,
including 200 years of American jurisprudence.
This is the analogy of someone gathering their house broken into, they call the police,
the policeman comes out and says, says, "Wow, somebody broke into your house."
She said, "Don't you want to take paper prints? What do you want?"
I don't know. I don't know.
Or the same person going up to the DA's office, and they say, "Hey, we caught the guy. We're going to trial.
But you've got to try the case." You know?
Now, wait a minute. This is completely inappropriate. Okay?
First of all, legally and otherwise.
A complainant should come in and make a complaint. It should be governed by probable cause.
That gives another term that is easily defined and everybody knows and understands.
Even the guy is over there. Okay?
So, probable cause. Once probable cause has been determined, and you can do it here if you want to,
once it has to be determined, an advocate should be appointed for the complaint.
You don't make them come up here and do all this.
And the advocate can be a city attorney. It could be this board.
It could be a retained counsel. It could be anyone who then also has subpoena power.
The way this is set up now, complainant comes in and says, "Well, I think this has to do with streets and roads."
Goes over to streets and roads and says, "I want to see all these projects."
No, I don't think so. What do they do? Nothing. They can't do anything.
This is a recipe to make sure nothing ever gets passed.
I know some people are under pressures in here to make sure that this ethics code never goes anywhere
and never does anything. But I can tell you this right now.
First of all, Austin and Fullworth don't use this.
The complainant is requested to testify and shall be dismissed.
No, but they have an advocate and they have someone that's brought before the committee to help them.
You can't expect somebody to come in here, file a complaint, and then sit there and say,
"Well, I understand everything about city government, so I know exactly what department to go to."
No. You cannot expect them to do that.
So, it needs to be done. You need to do a standard with an advocate of some kind.
I don't care how that's done. Well, I do care how it's done.
But it's not that difficult. They should have subpoena power.
The determination should be by probable cause.
And the standard should be, once it comes back after a hearing,
whether it be by this board, whether it be by appointed other people.
That's another thing that needs to be, should be discussed.
The determination should be by, I would suggest, by a preponderance of evidence.
Now, some people don't like those standards. Some people think they should be more strict.
Some people should use leg strength.
But this right here ensures that no one ever, ever gets a complaint filed.
Is that my time? I'm excited?
Thank you, Mr. Grant.
Okay.
I have a couple other things I want to say that I'll withdraw at this point.
If we have questions.
Okay.
Don't make it so hard.
Okay.
Do you want to do a presentation?
Sure.
Based on our discussion last month, I conducted additional research on Austin and Fort Worth's ethics complaint processes,
specifically regarding requirements, requirements for their complainants based on their codes.
I tried to outline these on the slide.
It should be noted that neither Austin nor Fort Worth have a section in the ordinance that specifically calls out whom the burden of proof rests on,
as Dentons does in section 2-281(c)(4).
In addition, "testify" for Austin and Fort Worth specifically means that the complainant must appear to, quote,
"state the alleged violation and describe in narrative form any testimony or evidence that would be presented to prove the alleged violation in the complaint."
They can have legal representation to do that for them.
And then lastly, it should be noted that in Austin's ordinance,
if there's not a clear requirement for the ethics complaint to be dismissed,
if the complainant does not appear to testify,
that might be due to Austin's Ethics Commission being able to initiate an ethics complaint process on its own volition instead of as an individual.
We all will discuss.
Discussion.
Madam Chair.
Ron.
Has the Denton complaint requirement been vetted by our legal department?
No, it was used outside counsel to draft the ethics ordinance.
Then would it be fair to ask to be vetted by that outside counsel?
They wrote it.
Yes, they wrote it.
Yeah, well, with help.
Well, and while I bring that up,
I would think it would be an understood, underlining situation that complainant, respondent, any of them could have legal counsel at any of the meetings that they're going to be presented to.
Or am I wrong?
Yes, that's true in all of these cases that the complainant or respondent may have to be represented by legal counsel.
So the complainant would need to hire an attorney in order to file a complaint, which would be prohibited.
Well, given that they have the opportunity.
Thank you.
I just want to make a comment that I went home after our last meeting and I was in a frenzy, an ethical frenzy.
And so I pulled up a bunch of ethical codes because I'm weird and I do that kind of thing.
And I did word searches on each one of them about burden of proof.
And that term does not come up in Austin or Fort Worth or San Marcos or San Antonio, which has some of these strictest codes.
In fact, they have a whole office that because there's been a lot of long doing in San Antonio.
So burden of proof, I don't care if people are complaining, if they testify or not, or if they have to be there or not.
It wasn't until Scott read in the last meeting that the burden of proof rests basically squarely on the shoulders of the complainant.
And I know I've read that a bunch, but that hit me like a ton of bricks.
And I will say this history has, this city has a history of treating citizens, residents, pretty badly.
You know, it's embarrassing and it's a longstanding, it's not a recent pattern, it's something that goes back a long way.
According to Wedgler, the complaint should be the city versus the person accused. And the complainant is there to say this is where I think it's a problem.
I don't care whether they're compelled to testify or not, but it puts a target on the back of anyone who wants to complain and has a chilling effect.
And I can tell you retaliation has happened. I personally am aware of a case.
So, that's my comments. So I want to hear from you. Andrea, first of all.
I was, I was actually, I like, maybe because of the business that I'm in, but I would like to explore the advocacy requirement when it comes to a complainant.
Because that would, it would also be, so if somebody makes a complaint and then an advocate is assigned, then I think it also becomes a whole lot less personal.
Because the person that is actually making the complaint is kind of like taken out of the process.
To a certain extent, it becomes a lot more about the facts that are brought in front of the court rather than who is this person and what are, what are they, what's, what are they, what is there to be, what, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I very much agree with what Dennis is saying and trying to suggest. The first time I saw this, it kind of struck me that any attempt to equate Denton with what goes on in Fort Worth or Austin is maybe just a little bit of an apples and oranges.
Because in these other two cities, the complainant either must or shall or may or may not testify. But in Denton, our code is written to actually weaponize this thing against.
Against the complainant.
Yeah. In other words, not only, not only must they testify, they must gather the evidence, question witnesses, conduct the hearing, subpoena witnesses, and if they don't have subpoena power, they're off just.
So, this burden of proof five years ago when this ordinance passed has been my number one target.
Because it is the most unethical, unproductive, I just had a real, real problem with doing this to people who would otherwise make a valid complaint against an official in this city.
This is, this is an evil proposition for what it does to citizens who might otherwise want to support this code, but oh no, no, I'm not going to get involved. I'm not making that complaint.
In other cities, Austin, Fort Worth, and everywhere else in Texas, the Board of Ethics, after they go through their preliminary process, then it goes to a hearing and the Board of Ethics oversees this hearing.
And like it says here, in other cities, a complainant may or may not testify. They're required to be there, and I don't understand, you know, I don't have a problem requiring the complainant to be there.
But, you know, even requiring a statement is optional in other cities, but it stops right there. They do not become the chief prosecutor of an ethics complaint.
This is wrong, and this needs to go in one form or another.
I don't know, there's a lot in the current process about frivolous complaints, and that's what's kind of confused me for the few months I've been on this board, is that if there's concern, and obviously there is from David and others, that we're putting too much of a burden on the citizens to come forward and make their case,
then why is there a need for a frivolous process, which, well, what that signals to me is that there are a lot of frivolous, and we're not the only city that has that process.
So, I'm just confused as to, we're concerned about a lot of frivolous complaints, but then we're concerned that they're not complaining enough, so it's like...
They are absolutely the only city that puts it right on the shoulders of...
There's only one other city that's in our benchmark set that has a frivolous complaint process.
Oh, okay, I'm talking about...
I believe it's Dallas.
Dallas.
Actually, Dallas is revising their ethical code right now, because I tried to find it, and it said that it was under review.
It was in their last one. I don't know.
I do think, though, that the burden of proof and the person that's making the complaint, having that burden of proof is very different from...that's a process kind of issue, whereas the frivolousness, I think, that is just a separate thing.
That's a separate thing.
I don't think it would be such a big deal if we tended to them.
I will also say that if a citizen is bringing up something that is really bad, they could be putting them...that citizen could be in harm's way if their identity is revealed.
That's why I whistleblower acts.
So I can just...the city needs to...I see this in other...the Historic Landmark Commission puts it on neighbors and members of the commission to kind of do the dirty work that they've got to do.
I know, because I'm a historic house woman. So it's just a kind of a leaning and a pattern where nobody at the city takes responsibility, and it's up to the citizen.
And I've heard council members call residents "village idiots." I've heard them say some really awful stuff. It is truly embarrassing the way some of our city officials view the residents who elected them, or are their constituents, whether they voted for them or not.
So I just...no other city puts this burden squarely on the shoulders of citizens, and it shouldn't even be like that.
It kills me.
Any other comments? I know they do pretty strong with someone barking.
Well, I mean, if someone yells fire, then they have the responsibility. Where is it? What did it really take place?
A complaint against a city employee or elected official, that's fire.
City employees have their own code of ethics, and it's actually good. I would take that for city officials in a heartbeat. It's how good that one is.
This one is just so narrow.
I put myself in the position of being, let's say, a citizen, and I know that council member B did something wrong.
It's my responsibility to subpoena witnesses, and it's totally my responsibility to present this to an ethics board.
Now, I don't have subpoena power, and I'm walking in the city hall talking to staff members about a city council member that they all may love, and I'm trying to gather information.
That's insanity. That is insanity, and it's been in this code for five years since it passed.
Now, I don't know what our process here is to actually write a replacement, or actually it's fairly simple to delete that section and just reword it, where the Board of Ethics, I had a draft proposed repeal and replace protocol.
The Board of Ethics shall order, preside over, and conduct all evidence or hearings. Complaints and respondents are free to attend, and may be called upon to testify, as it may please the Board.
Witnesses may also be subpoenaed by the Board to testify as necessary. Final determinations by the Board may be discussed in closed session, and will be discussed publicly in open session.
It's the Board's responsibility to do this, not to complain.
And what sort of sets that up very well, really?
Yeah, basically the same thing, and like Annette says, you can't find anything similar to this burden of proof section anywhere in the state of Texas, and I started to go beyond and I still couldn't find one anywhere else.
So this was written solely to weaponize this code by the city council in 2018.
Actually that speaks directly to when we have the ethics complaint, that was my biggest frustration being on this Board, is to not, I had to rely on the evidence that was brought by the complainant, rather than us being able to "investigate" the complaint, the basis of the complaint that was made, and ask the questions that need to be asked to gather the facts.
Spot on, spot on.
So, I want to hear from Tom and Rob on this.
Well, I don't know what the question is. I mean, this is going back five years and saying we're going-
Should the burden of proof be on the, on the citizen, or should it be on the city?
I think it should be the citizen.
On the citizen, okay.
This procedure of a dent is used in other organizations that I remember, and it is on the complainant.
They present the information, we almost look at it like some of these others that I have are looking at, the preliminary assessment almost be like a grand jury, and then the hearing is the jury itself.
And so the complainant presents, has this document presented. We've had it here before.
Even before all this, I remember where we did get together, we had, there were three members of the ethics that got together on the preliminary assessment with the complainant.
And talked to them, and then decided to go to a hearing, and we had five people.
That was our very first one, we ever did.
And I thought that worked out very well. I don't know what happened, that it changed.
But this, I think the complainant, we don't want to have, the complaints we hope will be kept to a minimum, because it takes a lot of time.
Irregardless, it's important to the person making the complaint, so let's go forward with it.
But I think the idea of the ethics is to have these outlines so that we can minimize all of this to, to cover important issues.
A complainant's going to have a head of steam because they're upset.
So they're going to get their evidence, they're going to get whatever they need because they've got the steam power to go to it.
Where the respondent may not have very much backup at all.
I think it should be the complainant, I think it should be the individual that pushes this.
And I see here the complainant's required to testify. Austin, they must attend. Fort Worth, they're required to testify.
So they're all showing up at the hearing anyway. Is that right, David?
Yes, and again, I don't have a problem with that at all.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you did. I apologize.
No, no, no, no. I'm saying the complainant should be part of the hearing.
Oh, without a doubt.
But to be responsible, to present everything, again, like I say, when you don't even have subpoena power, how in the world can you be expected to be on a level playing field?
They have to be the prosecutor, and I don't have a problem with that.
Well, that comes before us. I think the subpoena power is a little bit over what we would be looking at.
Because they're going to have evidence, they're going to have that, and so I think the subpoena is a little bit strong for what you're asking.
Well, not really, because there may be other evidence that they're not able to assemble.
The complainant.
Right, the complainant prior to a hearing. So they're just kind of out there in a row, in a light boat all by themselves, trying to put this together.
With their attorney, hopefully.
Well.
I mean, if I'm going to be a complainant, I'm going to have an attorney with me.
And you have a right to have an attorney.
And I'll let him address, or her, address whatever other documents that I want. But if I may, and someone said advocacy, and I thought that was very interesting, I'd like to see us maybe use an ombudsman at the very beginning.
Because that might be able to diffuse or rectify either misunderstandings or show that it really does need to go forward.
And it's been very successful in other organizations I've been in with the ombudsman, because they make that phone call with the complaint and they try to find out what is going on.
And is it really something that has the merit or the esteem to go forward or not?
No? What?
Well, you can keep your entire record.
Oh, you're talking about my record.
I'm not supposed to be recognizing, but I want to speak to everyone of you after the meeting for about three hours.
I still think the issue is things being laid so heavily on a complainant who may be angry, of course.
I think that's why they're doing it.
Why don't they see something really wrong? And it's really wrong.
I mean, we've already talked about how this code is weaker than state law.
So you could break state law and still not be in violation of our ethical code.
And that's just not okay.
I think for the sake of whoever's getting, whoever the respondent is, I would like our code to be stronger so that you get in trouble for breaking ethics before you break the law.
Well, let's see where everybody sits.
What we're going to do here is give direction to Madison so she can draft language.
I can come back and then y'all can, unless y'all have language already drafted that y'all are going to make a motion on.
But it's not going to make much sense for y'all to sort of vaguely say what you want unless we need to bring language back to y'all so y'all can read it,
make amendments to it if you want to and then approve it.
Madam Chair, would it be appropriate for us to send emails to Madison as to what our views are and then she can more or less categorize it and then present it to us?
No? Yes?
No, because it's kind of like a walking quorum.
We need to give your direction in this meeting and it needs to be the direction of the board.
So you want authority to make the direction.
Can I entertain an emotion and then she'll bring it back and we can decide for or against it.
Can I make a comment?
Yeah.
So this gets a little bit confusing when we first start talking about it because when we talk about the burden of proof in the hearing,
we're talking about a complaint that has already been reviewed by the preliminary panel of this board,
found to be actionable, I think is the right word, and not frivolous, right?
So this is a complaint.
Frivolous doesn't come in until I return.
Right. So I just want to make sure that everyone's clear.
We're not talking about a frivolous complaint here.
We're talking a complaint that is complete.
There is some evidence provided in the actual complaint documents.
All the forms are filled out, all the paperwork is done correctly, submitted to the preliminary hearing panel.
They find it to be actionable.
And then it goes before the board, the full board for a hearing.
And then the question I think is at that hearing, is it only the responsibility and only allowable for the complainant to present evidence and testimony?
And not only that, are they required to present evidence and act as a prosecutor in that?
To me, that sounds like the biggest part of the concern.
And we're totally separate from the frivolous complaint process.
And it almost sounds like the two groups of concerns are, are we putting undue barriers on citizens to submit a complaint for fear of having to stand in front of this board or retribution from a council member or whatever else.
Like that is totally valid to me.
I think that me, before being a member of this board, there is no way I would want to submit a complaint if I read this and said, well now I have to go and stand in front of all these people that I don't know and I see their names in the papers.
Then it's you against them.
Yeah, I don't want to do that.
So what I think would make sense is that if we have gotten to the point where we have a valid complaint.
And when I say valid, I mean it's been reviewed by Madison and it's complete.
It's been reviewed by the preliminary panel and it gets to a hearing process.
To me, that is the citizen who submitted that complaint has done their part and they have at that point have not submitted a frivolous complaint and they've submitted enough information for the preliminary panel to make an assessment that there should be a hearing.
They should not be required to continue to be the sole person responsible for everything.
If we take that requirement away by saying they don't have to do anything, I think we're missing out on something by not being able to ask them questions in the hearing.
I think it would be solved by just taking that section out that says the sole responsibility rests on the citizen.
That seems like the biggest concern from members of the group that are the most vocal in this and I totally understand that.
That doesn't feel right to me.
I don't want to have to hire an attorney to represent me when I feel like I did nothing wrong except for say someone violated an ethics complaint.
I shouldn't have to do that as a citizen.
And it also assumes you speak English.
Right.
If I could finish the last part, I think what we're trying to do today is we're trying to correct this burden-approved paragraph by either changing that completely, striking it, giving that responsibility to the board, an advocate, a city attorney, however we want to do that.
But I think we're, in some of this discussion we're getting the frivolous complaint and the burden-approved stuff.
Those are two separate things.
Thank you.
If I may make a comment.
I think I'm on board with everything Dustin just said.
What I want to understand better is I like the word advocate.
It doesn't mean anything to me right now.
So what does that mean?
If we can maybe get some understanding or consensus about what that means, I might be able to move forward with that not being solely on them if I know who's helping them if it's not an attorney.
Does that make sense?
My understanding of an advocate is it could be anybody that has knowledge of the matter and that has an ability to, you know.
Because this is an ethical process and not a legal process, that's kind of a parallel.
Like saying your attorney can be present or your advocate can speak for you.
That wouldn't rule out an attorney.
That would also say that an advocate may or may not have to have a legal right.
So I'm kind of like, I really like what Dustin said, I think what we need to focus on is what does the hearing process look like and what kind of evidence is brought to that hearing.
And where's that evidence coming from?
If the evidence for the complaint is not coming from the complainant, then the board still needs to present it with additional information and facts about the complaint.
In my opinion, a complainant, a citizen complaint is all to say, hey guys, it looks like there's a problem here and although I kind of hate the fact that the city is kind of like investigating itself in a way,
but I think it is on the, like if a citizen is making a complaint about that there's a potential violation, maybe the burden of proof should be on the city to say, well this person actually is not.
As a representative, this person is not, you know, having an ethics violation.
I think that's reasonable and fair. But again, I just, I must remind everyone one more time, nowhere else in the state of Texas is a complainant required to do what we're asking them to do here and yet it is wrong.
So could I, could we make a motion and, or make some wording for a motion? Because I would suggest maybe striking that section that says the burden of proof rests on the citizen, and maybe making some other changes in the document to make it so that it's clear that it's really between the city.
Make it a future agenda.
And of course, you can vote against that.
I think, I know it's difficult for me, possibly for everyone else, we're discussing a flow chart, as opposed to, but we're talking in words.
I think we need some words, which we very likely would improve. But that should be the, I believe the action is, let's ask Madison to bring forward a, you know, here's the words that describe the process, then we can strike and add to that, as opposed to, here's the football play.
I would suggest amending that section that says that the burden of proof rests on the citizen, on the complainant, and maybe either striking it completely or just saying that it really rests with the Board of Ethics.
It's between the Board of Ethics and the complainant, and I really don't care what we ask of the complainant, but I think right now we're just asking too much.
I don't care. I think without the complainant, you don't have any direction.
Madison needs guidance on, should the complainant bear the burden of proof? That's issue one, let's get some guidance on that. And then who, if not, who does? Let's get some guidance on that. And so we kind of break it up into pieces so we can get a majority on each of those issues.
Is that? Yeah, that would be, thank you. Yeah, that's good. Does that give you a starting point? A lot of saying. So it seems like there's direction that it should not, there's general consensus that burden of proof should not be on any point.
I'm not sure that's complete, no. There's a majority. There's a majority. And then if not, the complainant, who? Who provides the evidence? Right, I think that's a question for you.
Because I would not be comfortable as the ethics board, if we get to the hearing stage, for me not to get any additional information about this complaint. That is outside of what the complainant provided, right? I mean, obviously when they're making a complaint for a preliminary assessment, there's going to be some stuff that they're going to.
Someone else needs to take the ball and run with it. Personally, I think it would be great if the complainant could meet with someone from the city attorney staff and hopefully that attorney would do what an attorney would do and advise and say, I don't think you have a case here.
Or are you, I think you do, but here are some things that are missing. And that is the role of that advocate, right? That advocate can come from within the city personnel, right? There can be somebody that is familiar with the ethics code.
But I think a good attorney or advocate is going to say, I know you're upset about this, but I don't think it passes. So I think that would be another way to avoid it ever going to further this, because hopefully the complainant would be talking off the ledge.
Or would be strengthened. Does that require adding a step to the current process? Are you adding that in between the submission of the complaint, talk to an advocate, and then it goes to the ethics board?
I would be concerned about me or the city attorney as council appointees. I think it would be against the code of ordinance, the ethics ordinance for us to advise somebody whether or not to submit an ethics complaint against our bosses.
Could someone on the board be assigned to that case? And of course they wouldn't be in the hearing. They might sit with a person during the hearing. Potentially. I don't know that anybody else does that, but I think that's an option.
This seems like a good one to me, in my opinion. I feel we need to explore this more. We definitely need to discuss this more. It's a deep topic, obviously.
So can you bring some wording back like that to give us a starting point for our argument?
Sorry Madison. I'll do something. Okay. So we're moving on to item F. Future Meaning Topics. DOE 23-029, item F. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding future meaning topics.
So this was what we had originally planned. I believe you would like direction, or you would like Bernda Krupp to come back next meeting. Yes, please. So how would you like to fit that in?
Where do all the things that we postpone go? Yeah, those would go on this list. Okay.
I just see this as a very big issue that needs timely discussion. I would say top of the August agenda.
Followed by a definition of pending matter, and then alternates in that order. So we're already at one hour. If I can, I think pending matter and Bernda Krupp do not need to be in the same meeting.
Good. I'd vote pending matter to September. You're right.
Do you want to keep the definition of alternates? Or do you want to just have it be Bernda Krupp?
I'd like to keep it, but what do you guys think? Keep it.
Is there anything else? I think we've got direction for the next meeting. It is now 7.05, and I call this meeting adjourned. Thank you for your time, guys.