>> All right.
>> All right, it is now 5.30 p.m. on Monday, July 8, 2024.
This is the board of ethics meeting
and I am calling this meeting to order.
So we do not have any presentation
for the members of public.
We do have someone who will speak before one of the items.
So we'll start with item A, BLE24-23,
consider approval of minutes from June 3, 2024.
Any concerns about the minutes?
>> I move.
>> So Zeltner, David Zeltner moves to accept them.
>> I'll second.
>> And Dustin Palak is moving to accept them.
All in favor?
>> Aye.
>> It's unanimous.
So I want to move to BLE24-26.
I would like to suggest that we postpone this item
until the end of the meeting so that we can talk
about everything else first.
So I guess we would need a motion for that if you guys agree.
This is where we would talk about future meeting topics.
So who is that?
>> You can make that decision as a chair.
>> Oh, okay, I mean, I just made that decision.
>> Or you can entertain a motion if you prefer.
>> I'm addicted or I'm doing it.
Okay? So, yeah.
>> You want to be seen first then?
>> Item C first then?
>> Yeah, so now we're down to item C, BLE24-025.
And we do have someone, this is the management reports.
So would you want to give your management report first
and then we can let our speaker speak or?
>> Sure. We just, the management report is really just an update
on the 2024 packet of proposed amendments.
Very briefly, the city council gave direction to move forward
with one of the proposed amendments,
which was to redefine the definition
of relative per the board's direction.
The other proposed changes were rejected,
which included several items that I will not list right now,
but you are all aware of.
So you can answer questions about the meeting, but this is time
for you all to talk about it as well.
>> Yeah. Okay.
So I would like to call -- oh.
>> One question.
I missed part of that.
I left one of my pages at home, so I'm sorry.
The burden of proof, is that over with or is that?
>> The council did not accept that amendment.
There's nothing that prohibits the board
from bringing a similar amendment
to the city council at a different, a later time.
But there were four votes, and so for now, it's --
>> Well, it was presented to the city council.
>> They really didn't even talk about it.
They talked about other things instead, so.
They kind of talked about it, but --
>> I don't believe they actually took a vote.
>> Well, they're not allowed to vote during work session.
They give direction, so they did not give direction
to move forward with that proposed change.
>> So four head nods is still on our agenda.
At some point then, we can still --
>> I believe that one of the council members said,
"Bring us back something better,"
but I was not clear what he said.
What he meant by that, and there's no clarification here.
>> There is concern from the council during the discussion
on that item about the process being able
to be used inappropriately, essentially.
>> Which has happened, but I thought we had kind
of cleared that up.
>> Well, then, just a quick follow-up.
Then, now or later, is there a future meeting scheduled
with council yet to discuss this, or is that so far
into the future that we can't -- do you know?
>> We -- tonight, I was hoping that we could talk
about what our options are, and what are the best ways
of moving forward, so that's --
>> So they've not scheduled anything
to follow up on what you -- okay.
>> The only thing that -- and it's not currently scheduled.
They gave direction to accept your amendment
to change the definition of relative, so I'm working
on drafting that language so that it will go before them
for adoption during a future meeting.
>> But they did not remove the pending matter
from the conflict of interest,
and they did not give any direction related about the --
instead they got very concerned about campaign donations,
which wasn't even on the agenda.
>> Yeah. So just time, generally,
are we talking later this summer, fall, or later,
or is there any -- I mean, I know they're awful busy,
and I know you are, too.
>> My understanding of the current work session matrix is
the earliest we could get on would be the fall, currently,
if we wanted to try to have something ready by then.
>> Okay.
>> For another discussion.
>> Any other questions before we --
so we have a speaker here, and it is our mentor,
and I believe she has four minutes.
>> It's three.
>> She has three.
Okay. And she's a former council person.
It was on the council when this code was passed,
so I'm interested in hearing what she has to say.
>> Hi. My name is Debra Armentar,
and my address is 2003, Mr. Blaine.
I wanted to thank this board
for the very reasonable recommendations that you made
to the city council on conflict of interest
and burden of proof.
As Vanetta mentioned, I'm a former city council member,
so I've been on that side of dais,
and I don't pretend to be perfect,
but even from that side of the dais, my rule was
to always regard questions of ethics ordinance,
not from my point of view, but from the point
of view of the public who I serve.
In fact, that is the whole -- or should be the guiding rationale
behind every decision regarding an ethics ordinance.
So it is -- it was very sad and frustrating for me to see
after all of your good work and your just very sensible
and standard recommendations to see the obliquely expressed
objections expressed in the form of, you know,
this could be difficult for council members
or for city officials.
This could be uncomfortable for city officials.
So that was really disappointing to me.
I don't know how helpful it is for you to hear that.
I might just be preaching to the converted, but I do want you
to know that your work is really appreciated by me,
and there are people watching, even though I know
that it probably feels like nobody's watching
and nobody appreciates -- it's very unglamorous work,
but it's extremely important work.
See how much more time do I have?
>> About 52 seconds.
>> Okay. In my last 52 seconds, I'll say, you know,
it's no secret that when I was on council, you know,
I believed and advocated for a repeal and replace
of the entire ethics ordinance.
To me, that was the easiest way to fix its many problems.
At that time, a council majority,
and I'm guessing still a council majority,
might be opposed to that.
I still think that that's the correct solution, but in lieu
of that, the next best thing to do is to try
to revise the ordinance to make it more
like a standard ethics ordinance.
We have, as the consultants once said about our ordinance,
a very unique ethics ordinance.
You may have even said the most unique you've ever seen.
Sometimes unique is good.
Yeah, in this case, it is not good.
We do not want to have a unique ethics ordinance.
We need to make it more like other ethics ordinances,
and that's what your recommendations did.
I hope that you continue pushing forward in the spirit
of these revisions, and I look forward to hearing,
and I'm sure other members of the public, too,
would like to hear from you what we can do to help y'all.
I wrote to council before the meeting,
asked them to take your recommendations,
and I got to thank you for your comments, and that was that.
So thank you so much.
>> Thank you.
>> Dr. Armentor, I have a blind question.
>> Sure, sure.
>> From your experience and what you know about city officials
and city government, what do you think is the best way forward
for us, because that's what I want to think about tonight?
>> That's a really good question.
I was asking you all that question.
I want to know, too.
I wish I knew.
I just have to be honest and say, you know, I don't know.
I think it depends on the council and the council members,
but I do know that presenting rational arguments
and explaining why they're correct
and why objections are wrong doesn't always work.
That's what should work, right?
Next time we'll come back and we'll explain this
and we'll explain that.
So I would be lying if I said, oh, well, just, you know,
make some more arguments, and that will definitely get them
to see what is good for Denton, not just the public,
but good for our government to avoid the appearance
of conflict of interest, which, again, is what it's all about,
as you all know, about avoiding the appearance
of conflict of interest.
It's not about pointing fingers and being suspicious
of everybody, it's about trust, the public trust.
So anyway, I'm really sorry I have a lousy answer
to that question.
I am wondering the same thing myself.
>> Do you have a question?
>> I don't have a question for Dr. Armitage.
I have a question for us, more for you than for anybody else.
>> Well, let me say, I'm assuming
that everybody has had a chance to look at the video.
Did you get to look at it?
>> I did not look at it, no.
>> Okay.
>> Which one, council?
>> The day we went to council and what they had to say.
>> The council video.
>> Right.
>> Yeah, okay.
>> So you did and you didn't.
What fill you in, Andrea?
>> My question is beyond that part.
Is there room for discussion at this point?
>> There will be.
What I wanted to do is kind of go around Robin
and just start with each person.
I wanted to ask Dustin first because he was actually
in the room and then we'll start with David
and we'll end up with you.
So each one of you will be able to tell us what you're thinking
about and what you think the options are.
So, Dustin.
>> I can start.
So I attended the work session and then a few days later,
I went back and watched the video of the work session to try
and make sure I understand how the discussion was going.
I'll start in general.
It sounded like from most of the discussion in the room
that there was concern about how this would affect their ability
to conduct business as council members.
Most of the criticisms of the language we used started
with a hypothetical of what if this happened
for someone coming into my business
and then they do some small amount of, we do some small amount
of work for this person and then they're going
to bring something before council later on
which would then be a pending matter.
So they were kind of focused
on the pending matter thing still even though some
of our proposed amendments addressed those concerns.
But the discussion was they were concerned
that this would be weaponized against them
so someone would intentionally, the word they used was gag them
for a period of two years on the council.
That is absolutely not what our intentions were
as a board I don't think would definitely wasn't mine.
I don't believe it was anybody else's.
>> There would be a way to, yeah.
>> We would put anything in there to do that.
>> That one of the sanctions would be considered.
>> We talked multiple times about the weaponization
of the ordinance in the past and it was interesting
because that was used in a different way
for the last ethics complaint that was heard by the board.
What they described in their hypothetical was intentionally
using this prior business against them to prevent them
from considering something before the council.
I understand that concept.
We had multiple discussions about dollar limits of, you know,
value of goods or services exchanged and we all agreed
in our multiple meetings that we had
that placing a dollar value on that would be very difficult
because a threshold value makes it a little bit harder
to exercise judgment as a board in reviewing some of these.
I found there were some concerns about reputational benefit
and the hypothetical in that case was if someone gets an award
from a non-profit entity would they have a conflict of interest
if they had business before the council?
What about having dinner at a restaurant?
What if someone that works there now has a matter before council
and then that series of hypotheticals ended
with the question of are there any attorneys on the board
of ethics which I found to be very frustrating.
A comment that sounded to me like a criticism
of the work that this board has done.
That was by council member Jester who I think, hopefully,
as a new council member she'll get to go
through the ethics training and familiarize herself
with our ethics ordinance, how it's written
and why we made our proposed amendments to the ordinance.
Council member Bird was very hopeful in trying
to maybe calm some of the concerns about the defensiveness
that I was hearing in the room and relay the story
about how she was a member of a non-profit
and they wanted to use a city facility.
She described coming before the board to get that review.
I guess in actuality I don't believe she came before the
board, I think she asked for a panel which she did not have
to attend, the only effort was send an email to Madison.
We convened a panel, we reviewed that and offered it.
So I think that was something that was very unclear
to some of the members of the council
that were very critical of our amendments
that this is not meant to be a burden for them.
The ethics ordinance is meant, as our speaker perfectly said,
this is to allow for some transparency
in our local government.
It's not meant to be a burden on them and I think the volunteers
on this board have tried to make that possible by clearing
up some of the things that are very confusing on this
so that it is easier for our officials who are subjected
to the ethics ordinance but also for the citizens
who would potentially file a complaint.
We've taken out or attempted
to remove the burden of proof section.
That was also rejected which I think after all
of our discussions and things that we talked about,
we all kind of agree that is,
that burden of proof is actually a burden on the citizens
who would like to -- yeah, it makes people not want
to submit an ethics complaint.
Council member Holland supported council member's gesture.
Council member Jester's comment on the concern
for gagging a council member for two years
and without offering any additional discussion
or recommendation said I am rejecting the amendment and I
believe that was all that he provided.
Council member Beck, he gave the direction
to do a wholesale replacement of the conflict of interest section
which is essentially what we tried to do by using language
out of the model code.
Probably council member -- I live in council member Beck's district.
Probably one of the most frustrating things that was said
in the meeting was that when he said they were overly tied
to wordsmithing rather than crafting.
>> Which is what we had to use up last time.
>> That was his quote, I don't think we did anything
in putting together the proposed amendments
that I would consider wordsmithing rather than crafting.
I think we tried to just clean up a lot of stuff
that didn't make sense, make this easier to apply
with a focus on transparency for our officials.
So I don't really know what to do with that is feedback.
If you would like to give us some guidance on how we can redo
that conflict of interest section without wordsmithing
and doing some more crafting, I would be very open to hear that.
He did say that we need specificity
on what is regular business.
I don't think we define that in the --
I don't think that's defined in the ordinance.
And I don't know that we want to do that.
I think we spend a lot of time trying
to decide what definition we want to put in for a reason.
One of the other questions Council Member McGee asked us
or asked Madison, I think, to define substantial.
And that was a question I thought we might get
because we intentionally did not define it.
We did that on purpose for the same reason.
We didn't define some of the other things.
We did it because we want to be able to use some judgment.
We want to be able to apply the ordinance fairly.
And I don't think that we want things
like what the hypothetical that Council Member Jester brought
up about someone doing a very small amount of business
with her firm just to gag her for a period of two years.
I think that is the entire point of not defining
that with a dollar amount.
The question was also asked is any goods
or service exchange a conflict of interest?
The answer to that is no.
I think we all know that.
I think that the discussion kind of veered off and let's talk more
about hypotheticals and not about the value
of these amendments that were before the board.
Mayor Esbeth did ask about personal benefit
and he had some concern on that, ambiguity of that,
and did ask about endorsing someone.
I believe he was talking about in a local race
if he could endorse someone since ratification
of election results would eventually be a pending matter.
So I think the idea is if he as a sitting council member,
as mayor, endorsed another candidate and in that,
when those election results came before council,
that becomes a pending matter and he was worried
that that would be a conflict of interest.
We had already addressed the pending matter issue
in the amendments we provided.
That was normally discussed.
But I understand that, but again, we have to,
we're trying to write a general ethics code for the city
and it's extremely difficult to address every one
of these hypotheticals and I felt like what was different
about these amendments that we sent to council for approval
compared to what we sent before is that we took out a lot
of things that made it so that we could exercise some
reasonable, fair judgment if there is a complaint
and we have put in some things that are intentionally meant
to not allow people to weaponize the ethics code for any purpose.
The only purpose of this is for transparency
and to protect the citizens.
I, in general, I will say that I was extremely discouraged
by the results of that work session.
I was discouraged by the comments that a lot
of the council members made and I am hopeful that we can come
up with something so that we can clean up some of the issues
in our ordinance and that we don't spend hours and hours
in this room trying to fix something that's broken only
to just have our recommendations almost completely ignored.
So those are my general comments.
I don't have a great plan.
>> Do you have a recommendation about what might be the best way forward?
>> So I think the best way forward is if we choose
to resubmit amendments on these same parts of the ordinance,
if we can, prior to that discussion in our meeting,
take their specific comments, there were some very,
there were very few specific comments that they made
that I think we can actually apply.
And some of the criticism, maybe we can, well,
I don't think we want to put it in the code things
like defining substantial and personal benefit in a different way.
I think that when we present it to them, we can tell them,
this is not defined purposefully because of this reason.
We have taken this language, not this wordsmith language
that we came up with in the meeting, we pulled this from the model code
and we can present it to them that way so that it is more clear to them
that we are not just making things up here.
We're trying to change, excuse me, change our ordinance
so that it is functional and so that we are not a very unique code.
We have something that we can actually do something with.
I've been on this board for like three years and in that time,
we've had one complaint that actually came before the board,
not a panel, but the actual board.
And that one complaint was found to be frivolous.
And either that means our council members, our city staff,
everyone who is subjected to the rules of this ordinance are doing a really good job
or no one wants to deal with this.
And I would hope it's the former, but I'm a little concerned it's more of the latter
and that this, I mean, you look at what we have right now
and it's very difficult to look at that and actually, as a citizen,
figure out how do you apply them.
And I really thought that what we had proposed was pushing it in the right direction,
but unfortunately the council members, most of them did not agree with that.
I would like to, sorry that was a very long one.
I think what we can do is if we can take those comments
and we can just clean up some of the language a little bit
and present to them almost something very similar that addresses their criticisms
because I don't think starting over or skipping over to some other section of the code
that is kind of screwed up that needs work is the right thing to do.
If we can't fix the conflict of interest section of an ethics code and get a council
to agree on that, then I don't know what we're doing in these meetings.
So, sorry for the long... -Thank you, Dustin. I appreciate your comments.
We'll move on to David Zoller.
-Well, Dustin, you've done a very excellent job of covering just about everything.
I was not here in the room, but I was watching on TV
and I watched the whole thing again this morning just to try and remember some of these things.
I think that one of the things that I've probably missed the first time,
the council of all of these have the greatest difficulty with the complex of interest A1D,
which is this is where all the lawyers and the clients come into play.
And I understand that completely.
And this, to be real honest, I hadn't thought a whole lot about that
because this model code, from my standpoint and from my years looking at this,
was pretty inclusive and it shouldn't raise a lot of eyebrows.
But obviously, with all due respect to the lawyers in the room,
obviously that raised some eyebrows when this client or substantial customer came in.
I don't know where we go from here, quite honestly, because my line in the sand,
I thought if anything should be easily dispatched, it would be this whole burden of proof
that took a code and weaponized it against citizens who might dare,
dare to file a complaint against something they've heard.
And so that to me was kind of my takeaway that if we can't repair or get rid of that burden of proof,
I don't know where we go from here and how we repair what's happened up to now.
There are model codes all over the United States and the state of Texas,
and I don't understand why we're at this point right now that we have to defend stuff
that is working everywhere else except debt.
And so this is my frustration too, listening to what was said.
I don't know where we go from here.
Ms. Armentor mentioned, you know, do you amend the current code,
or do you just tear this thing in half and start over and just go right back
to a universal model code that's working pretty much everywhere else in the state of Texas.
So I'm frankly, I don't know where we go from this point, but I do know just
from a personal standpoint, again, personal standpoint only,
if that burden of proof remains in this code, I'm done.
I want nothing to do with this moving forward.
If you can do to citizens who only, you know, this was passed, you know,
I mean seven years ago now, and the four criteria that were there,
and there's no point, you know, Madison had them in our notes for today,
without going over all those four criteria that should have been in the code,
I don't know where we go from here, you know.
So I'm very frustrated with where we're at and what we try to do.
We try to do nothing other than what is already working in cities all over the state of Texas.
And so there's nothing extreme here or, again, with the exception of this client
or substantial customer, this 1D, I understand where, for example,
where misgestures was coming from. I do understand that.
And that's going to change my perspective on this, on the entire conflict of interest.
I think that's still a lot of work that we can do there to make that right.
But for me, that burden of proof is a line in the sand.
And that's why there have been no complaints in the three years,
because the citizens in this town that I've talked to,
who know how long this arm and tour myself and other citizens,
they just said, "We're done. We want nothing to do. There are complaints."
And if nothing else, one thing that frustrates a lot of citizens
is that you can handle them differently.
If the complaint comes from a citizen, they've got to check all these boxes
and turn into an amateur prosecutor.
And now somebody on city staff can do it through picking up a telephone
and calling the other alternative route there for fraud, waste, and abuse hotline.
So the burden of proof to me is the deal breaker.
If we can't repair that or get rid of it, I think we're in trouble.
- Just to be clear, the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline is open to literally anybody.
But there's not a very clear procedure on what I am supposed to do
if we receive an ethics complaint through that hotline.
- So what's your thought about the best way to move forward?
- Well, that's why I was asking earlier, are we just at a time out here?
Or can we take this back?
I don't know actually how to do this other than one of the things
that I've been curious about is if we have someone in the state of Texas,
possibly in Denton, and Robert, I can't think of his name, Bob Bland from UNT,
now we have some professionals in Denton that might be able to help.
And I was asking or wondering, you know...
- Dr. Bland heads up the public policy department.
I forget what it's called, but basically it's public policy.
- Well, the point was that, you know, Alec Barquist stood up there for weeks on end
charging the city of Denton, and the end product is an ethics code
that embarrasses me and a lot of citizens in this town.
Do we have a budget at all?
I mean, other than Madison's well-qualified, do we have the ability to go out
and find someone that can speak for us and for what we're talking about,
trying to do here, and present the other side, not that you couldn't,
but I would not have wanted to be in your seat during that work session, frankly,
because that was just not fun.
- Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt, I should have said Madison did an outstanding job here in the meeting,
so thanks for reprimanding us.
- Thank you.
- I've been in common on that for sure.
- So I know we don't have a budget beyond zero.
- We have $10,000.
Some of it has been used for outside consultants for the board of ethics.
We typically use that with the Borges firm when we have to process ethics complaints
or advisory opinions for the city council, because the city attorney's office refuses them.
So we would have to go through a procurement process, but we have some money available
if you would like to give direction to go that way.
- I would be very much in favor of that, not that we don't have many, many dedicated,
well-qualified people right here, but we need some help to have this city council
understand the difference between an ethics code and an ordinance,
and they're ordinance-driven, not code, they don't understand the difference
between an ethics code and an ordinance, and that's a fundamental problem,
not because we've got maybe too many lawyers on the council, I don't know,
but there's a fundamental misunderstanding about what an ethics code is and what it is not.
And that's what I think someone that would come in and help them understand
that you're not going to be able to have 92 bullet points up and down an ethics code
and cover every possible scenario where someone can step over the line.
That's not going to happen ever.
And if that's their goal, we're wasting time.
So, we're not the first city in the state of Texas that's just tried to pass an ethics code.
This has been done before, and this council is acting like this is the first time ever.
So, I don't know how to fix that or to get some help.
>> So, I agree with a lot of what I'm hearing.
I like the idea of maybe having some consultants come and speak to us
and then maybe help, maybe even for us or whatever, but to help us be able to present the idea
of an ethics code that is very non-controversial, which was what we were trying to do,
and reduce the fear level, because the fear level I saw was very up on the ceiling.
They're afraid we're out to get them, and quite the opposite, we're trying to protect them
from frivolous accusations at election time and other frivolous complaints.
And they're not believing that.
So, there's a problem there.
Why do they fear us?
And because that is not what we're trying to do.
We're trying to increase transparency, increase the ease of use and understanding of the ethics code.
We have an ethics code that is pretty generic that other cities use.
And so, something's not translating.
And so, that's my concern.
How can we have a better discussion with city council?
I don't know if it's ever allowed to have a work session instead of just presenting them
with some recommendations and then they voted up and down.
If we could have a work session where we all sit together and talk about it,
because it's not just about them telling us what they don't like.
I'd love to hear what they do want.
You know, I'd like to hear what would you like to see.
And so, you know, that would be helpful and I don't know if that's even allowed to do that.
Or if that's out of order to do something like that.
But I'd love to do anything we can do to reduce the fear level.
To show that we're an advisory board.
We have panels.
We have ways of buffering them from frivolous complaints.
They can come and ask a panel is, you know, is this going to be an ethics violation?
And I don't think that's a huge burden because it doesn't come up that often that there's,
you know, even a question about an ethics violation.
So I don't see it as a huge burden.
And I think we do need to address the concerns that the different council people brought up.
But maybe do it in a way that seems less scary to them.
And for example, the idea of, if I went to a grocery store and bought groceries and then
that grocery store wanted a zoning change, would I have to refuse myself?
And you think, oh no, that's, you know, that's silly.
But what if I bought something expensive like a car?
Would I have to recuse myself that that car dealership wanted a zoning change?
Not necessarily.
It wouldn't have to.
Just because a car is more expensive, it would be like if they gave you a car right before
the zoning change, or if the grocery store gave you a year's worth of free groceries,
then you might say, hey, this is a little shady.
But most of the time, these things that come up are not going to be ethics violations.
That's why you have a board.
And you have a board to say, hey, you're OK.
You're cool.
Don't worry about it.
It's like buying a shop and buying groceries.
Yeah.
And if there's anything to worry about, then you talk about it even before it gets to the
higher level of an actual hearing.
So I just wish we could figure out some way to reduce the misunderstandings of the fair.
The city council does occasionally have joint meetings with certain other committees or
other political bodies, like the independent school district and things like that.
So I can check in on that.
They have not had one with the board of ethics before.
I have to say, seeing what I saw at this last meeting, I would not be interested.
So Andrea, do you want to go before me, or should I--
That was actually exactly my question.
My original question was exactly that.
What request do we have in terms of communication with the board directly?
Because what I'm hearing, all of these things, if you remember now of our discussion, I was
very concerned about a very broad definition of things.
And I want to have you back here for a second, because it was actually you as the lawyer
who explained to us that substantial is often used in that vague of a sense in order to
be able to catch things that are of different value to different people that have different
meaning in different situations.
So I, personally, am very much, before we spend a ton of money on an expert, what request
do we have to actually communicate directly with the city council and actually give them
an understanding?
Because I also see exactly what was already mentioned, that a lot of these concerns really
reflect kind of a misunderstanding of what we are as a board.
Because it almost seems like they're afraid of being policed by us, whereas the ethicoats,
my understanding is it is so that you know what you should and shouldn't do and that
you actually reflect yourself as a city official and as a council member of what is appropriate
and what is not appropriate while you're holding you as a person and you as an elected official,
or as a hired person, as a representative of the city.
That is no different than I have had certain questions as an educator, like when it comes
to elections, I have had numerous conversations of am I allowed to do this as a teacher?
In what situation while I'm having children at this school, what am I allowed to say,
what am I not allowed to say?
When am I a parent, when am I an actual representative of the school district?
Those are all ethics questions that I really do think that city council is completely missing
and it more, yes.
So those are the big things for me in terms of, because really and truly the only chance
we have to get any other recommendations passed is if we create an understanding within the
city council of where our recommendations are coming from.
And that is something that I really do think goes beyond your role.
And I think that is where we as a board should actually put ourselves out there and say this
is why we're making these recommendations.
Thank you.
Yeah, but what's your thought on best way forward?
My best way forward is at this point we've had two rejections in terms of revising the
code.
One was about two years ago, right, after two years, and then we've had a lot of change
and we've recommended other changes, different changes and we were rejected again.
So in order for us to plug away and spend more time trying to figure out, which the
word smithing really hurts me because that's what we were trying, yes.
I really do, I really think that we need to be, we need to be, we need to take a different
approach than just presenting through Madison changes.
We need to figure out a way of actually educating the city council and having a conversation
with the city council so that, which what I don't understand is every single one of
us is appointed by a city council member.
So if they're appointing us to sit and confirmed by all of them, so if they're doing that and
we're sitting here based on their recommendation and their vote, why are we not trusted?
So my turn.
I want to say I've tried to go into this meeting really positively.
I felt like I was in a good frame of mind and I thought what happened last time was
terrible.
It can't be worse.
It was worse.
You know last time there were two people who were yelling and I think everybody else was
just kind of sitting there like quiet ducks sort of.
This time there was no decorum in the meeting.
They were off track and from the session before they were looking at some changes and it wasn't
being presented by a city staff member, it was being presented by an official with the
Chamber of Commerce and it was like thank you, that's wonderful, yay, yay, yay, good
job and then the minute our thing came up it was like a switch flipped and it was suddenly,
it was just crazy and there was no decorum and I can tell you how much I appreciate Scott
because he's explained a lot of things to me and he quietly tells me when we're getting
off track and I like to think that I respond and I listen.
I saw the same thing happening in this meeting, no response and finally I did and I will say
there were two council people sitting right there, Jester and Vicki Bird and they were
carrying on a very loud sidebar and it was loud enough that I couldn't hear what was
being said in the rest of the room.
I was sitting right there right behind them.
It was unacceptable and it was disrespectful to Madison, the constant comments and they
were both, well Jester was doing a lot of talking and I did not hear her listening and
so she's a new council person and she hadn't at that point had the ethics training.
I was offended, I felt disrespected, I felt very disrespected for Madison who always has
everything together and presents things very well and it was just like we were trying to
saw a fillet or something, it was really, really disrespectful.
I also feel like we have a couple lawyers on the council now who do not understand the
difference between law and ethics.
If you think about concentric circles there's a little bit of overlap, law is a set of rules
and ethics is more aspirational, they completely don't get it.
We're trying to bring people back in before they are in violation of state law but as
it stands our code is really weaker than state law so it's possible that someone could be
in violation of state law before they get found guilty of an ethics violation and that's
sad because if I had the choice between being charged with violation of law and ethics,
I'd prefer the ethical charge because that is meant to be a higher level and it's meant
to be more aspirational and you're really trying to guide people into better behavior
but I felt like they were telling us we were being mean to them.
Bottom line for me is I don't think they're listening to constituents.
What was lucked out of this whole thing that Borgquist recommended was to involve constituents,
voters in the code, that was, and I know that there's a council person who just rotated
off who thinks that they were involved but voters were not involved other than their
passage of the bond, there's never been a time when they really asked the voters what
they think about this and it's meant to engender trust, I don't think it does.
Also honestly council members should not be making decisions, so I'm reading from Weschler,
the fact that elected officials like to have a final say is in itself a conflict of interest
because it certainly is not in the public interest to give them this final say.
The more independent the ethics commission, the more it will be trusted by city residents,
the less it will be used for political purposes and the more respect its decisions will be
given.
If the ethics system is not perceived as independent and ethics accusations are politicized, the
ethics system can actually undermine the very confidence in government it is supposed to
protect.
So one option is, and Weschler actually says this at one point in his 1300 pages of writing,
he says that some cities are better off without an ethics code, I think that's a possibility
that we need to tell council, look, we don't have a viable code, all you can do really
is beat up your political opponents with it, it's not a good code, but just don't even
try to say we have one.
Another question for Madison, has the current council, it's my understanding there's supposed
to be some annual ethics training, do you do that yourself or how does, well for example
the reason I ask that is during this meeting I heard a council member claim that, well
you could, citizens could just keep bringing up the same complaint over and over again,
well no they can't, because they can be sanctioned, and so it showed me that there's maybe some
folks on this council that really don't understand.
Yes, the ethics training for the city council happened about a week and a half after the
presentation.
So all council members have currently been through training?
They received it on June 22nd I believe.
Well for example that was just a factually, just an erroneous statement that I heard from
doesn't matter who, but so they're living in some other world that is not relevant in
terms of an actual ethics code, you know, he can keep bringing up the same complaint
over and over and over, no he can't.
I felt like the decision had been made before we even made the presentation, did you get
that sense?
Yes.
Anybody else, did anybody get a different perspective of that, because I felt like they
had already decided, no.
And you know having, the last time we brought, yeah we brought a bunch of little nitpicky
things to council, I don't think they understood them, they approved a couple of them, they
left most of them on the table.
So this time we came back with these are too big, and they were off track the entire presentation.
They were looking at other parts of the code, their discussion of either of the points we
were trying to make was very very minimal at best, and I kind of feel like the wording
change of getting rid of the consequency definition was kind of like, here's a bone, thanks.
I was kind of wanting a filet or something, yeah.
Well it seems rather simplistic, but to go to the council and say okay San Marcos has
a very effective code, El Paso has a very very effective code, Fort Worth, pick one.
San Antonio.
If you don't like what we're proposing, then you go find a code that you like, and we'll
see if we can adapt it to them, but trying to reinvent the wheel when it's been done
all over the state of Texas, I don't understand that.
We're not trying to invent something.
I feel like that's a large part of what we did, what we proposed to them.
We didn't take necessarily San Marcos or San Antonio, but we took language directly from
the model code and presented that.
And since then, they wrote the code in the first place, so they presented, they came
up with the code in the first place, my understanding is, okay so that code was brought up in 2012,
is that correct?
And so instead of us just asking over and over again do you like this, do you like that,
I would like for them to say this is what we like, and then we can discuss and say yeah
that sounds good or oh no there's some things that we don't think will work, but they haven't
told us anything what they want, they just say what they don't want.
I understand what you're saying, I think, I'm thinking about what Annetta read, and they
should not be dictating to us what is in our code.
No, but I mean that is the situation though, we can't change that.
But I mean we didn't go back to them and present.
We really don't like it, I think we probably, I mean one thing we might send a letter and
say you're not involving the people who need to trust you, you're not listening to your
constituents, you don't know who they're listening to, I don't really care actually.
I think there needs to be, their decorum was frustrating and that's the nicest word I can
think of.
Question for city legal, being a quote unquote quasi judicial governing body, does that give
us any special avenues to fix what we're talking about here and being a quote unquote judicial
just imposes additional restrictions on how you hold your meeting?
So here's the things we've talked about, have a joint meeting, revise what we have and go
back and talk to them, a consultant, recommend another code, recommend no code, or maybe
an open letter, those are the things that I have.
So what?
I'll say my preference, my preference would be to take our proposed amendments, make modifications
to those proposed amendments to address the very few specific things that they had concerns
about, where it makes sense and to not address them where it does not make sense, because
we have spent many hours trying to answer a lot of these questions, if we need to add
a definition here or make a change to that 273A1D, that section they had concerns about,
that's fine, I mean if we need to change that because there are things that we need to consider.
Because I was looking at it and thinking, why do these next three little paragraphs
even exist?
I mean, let's just make it, but I think where it got off the rails was that we put the whole
code in the back up and then they start wandering around and we've been telling you the whole
thing's broken.
I think that, I don't want to start over from scratch looking at a different section or
trying to find a totally new code and push that across, it's not going to work.
I would like to take the hard work we've already done, clean up the things they had comments
about and give it back to them and then they can tell us again why they think we don't
know what we're doing.
And if they do that, then that's fine.
I think at some point, hopefully, people that actually vote will start to see this and say,
we can't even get these people to agree to an ethics ordinance here.
How can we expect them to conduct business in a way that's for all the citizens?
I don't know how to make that happen other than if we continue to push them to do what
we think is right after hours and hours of discussion and research and trying to fix
the problems we have, they can either accept it or reject it and then like all people in
elected positions, they're going to have to face the consequences for those decisions
and they're going to have to explain themselves.
Maybe simply the people who voted for them care about those things.
And I hate to worry about this burden of proof thing, but make it very clear to those same
people that as it is right now, this code has been weaponized against you as a citizen.
And if you're okay with that, then live with it, because I'm going, but . . .
Okay, what other . . . Andrea, what do you think?
I mean, I'm willing to make tweaks and re-present it, but I think without a direct or an open
letter, some kind of communication of what the rationale and reasoning behind it is and
for really explaining what, why we're doing certain things, I really don't think we're
going to get any other outcome.
That's my . . . I mean, the work I don't have a problem putting in, especially when we're
saying let's take these recommendations, see how they make sense.
That's absolutely, but I think if we're just presenting it the way we have been presenting
it, the outcome is going to be the same.
I don't think that there's any kind of convincing otherwise, unless there is a rethinking of
what our goals are and how those things are addressed.
So, Patricia.
I'm more in favor of having some kind of group meeting face-to-face, our council with City
Council, because I have a fear that if we try to tweak things, then it'll just . . . like
Andrea said, that it will just be shot down again without much thought put into it.
So, it's kind of a waste of their time, and our time especially, but I think if it's a
frank face-to-face discussion, what are you wanting?
What's wrong with this?
What would you suggest instead?
You know, a real discussion, I think, would make more progress.
Okay.
David, what do you think?
I am ready and willing to jump into this conflict of interest again.
I'm okay with the fact that that couldn't be cleaned up a little bit, but again, my
line in the sand is this burden to prove, totally.
I think the two recommendations we made were the most appropriate ones, the stuff about
whether or not you have a $200 political contribution that we weren't . . . that wasn't even on
the agenda.
That was frustrating to me.
Whose job would it have been to bring that in?
To not allow that?
It just wasn't on the agenda.
Yes.
I mean, is there somebody to say that we're not voting on that right now?
They were off-topic.
Almost the whole time they were talking about it.
But who would bring that up, that it's off-topic?
I think I saw the attorney trying to get it back on track, because I finally saw him go
. . .
Because it's, you know, we could discuss it at some point, but it wasn't . . .
I finally saw him say, "Well, it's your meeting to run," and at that point, that's when we
got the very little change that we did get.
But there was no attempt to . . . Personally, I think a couple people should have been rolled
out of order.
I think that they were . . .
Who does it, the attorney or the mayor?
The mayor.
The chair of the meeting.
It was . . . I think the thing that made me maddest is that we try really hard to follow
the rules, and the city council isn't even following the rules that they have set for
us.
That's poor leadership.
I like to think that I listen when I get told, "Hey, you're off-topic."
I'm pretty sure I saw the city, and I couldn't hear what he was saying, because the distractions
over here were so loud.
I couldn't even hear, "Madison, I couldn't even hear your presentation at points," because
it was a constant chatter and joking, and, you know, "You should wait to be recognized."
That wasn't happening.
I thought you and Madison did an excellent job during that whole session.
I really do.
I think Madison always does a great job, and I am so grateful to have Scott here, because
he rolls me in, in a good way, and he's quiet about how he does it.
I expect the same thing from the city council, and I was disappointed, because I did not
see it.
It was like a circus atmosphere, just, you know, everybody was talking, there was no . . .
There was absolutely zero decorum.
Zero.
That's why you have Robert's Rules of Order, and then we follow it kind of loosely, but . . .
Which might give you an indication of how seriously they consider the ethics ordinance
anyway, in the first place.
Yeah.
I had to wonder if it wasn't, like, well, it's . . . For things that they agree with,
there is decorum, but if there's . . . Yeah.
So Scott, I have a question for you, if I don't want to, if that's okay.
What is our limitation on . . . Like, because, I mean, this is all public record.
The work session is public record.
What is our limitation as board members to approach a city council member about our discussions,
because I mean . . . We could do that.
Yeah.
There's not a limitation.
No.
Just not as a group.
Not as a group.
As a board.
More than one.
But it's . . . Otherwise, it would be extroverted, right?
Yes, but you can . . . But individual conversation.
Individually?
Sure.
Okay.
What was the question?
I'm sorry.
What are our limitations on approaching city council members?
I just wanted to make sure that individual conversation, like an individual ethics board
member and an individual city council member, it is not out of order to have conversation
about these proceedings, because they're public record.
Well, that's a correct response, but the only problem, the walking quorum, sometimes can
become a problem, too.
Yeah, but that . . . Right.
That's not . . . Exactly.
So what I'm hearing to kind of move things along, I hear three votes for revision.
There's one for a joint meeting and one for a vote on other . . . or we could do more
than one.
So does someone want to make a . . . I would like to make a motion.
I would like to make a motion to, once we adopt reconsideration of the language, to
invite the city council to participate in our conversation.
I don't think that needs a motion, and I'm also not posted for action on this item.
Okay.
So if y'all want to . . . That's a . . . you're speaking about the next time y'all make a
slate of recommendations.
So that kind of takes . . . We'll come back to this in a minute.
We'll take a note of that and see what happens next.
So there's direction to invite the city council to participate in a discussion.
Once we've made revisions, which I think that we could probably take care of it.
I think I would recommend just looking at the two things we recommended and just tighten
them up.
Take words out rather than leave them in.
Can I amend that, because I think that is not really what I intended.
I didn't really intend them to . . . I would like for them to be present during our conversation.
Yes, they're able to watch it, and yes, they're able to look at the video, but I would like
for them to be present during our actual discussion and revising so that they actually see the
thought and care that goes into what we're doing and that we are being held to the standards.
So kind of do them both at the same time.
Yes.
Okay.
That makes sense.
Okay.
So I think the next thing is to receive a report.
So we'll move on to item D.
BOE 24-24-24.
Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding the ethics ordinance
alignment with the 2017 Charter Review Committee recommendations.
I haven't really prepared all that much.
I've listed the four requirements that the voters approved during the 2017 Charter Election.
I have . . . in the backup, I gave you slides from their committee discussion, and I have
backups of what the slides were if you all want them.
Okay.
So if you would like, I have this slide prepared so we can list them if we believe some sections
that currently exist address the current requirements.
There's also some recommended elements that are not listed but that are on those slides
that I came up with.
So what to kind of . . . I'm just trying to move things along a little bit.
So on page 13 of Exhibit 2, the recommended charter language for ethics, there is a definition
of a prohibitive improper economic interest and personal gain in the code.
What's the question?
The first item is in the code, right?
Right.
And then the second definition of recusal, that's definitely in the code.
So I . . . number three is not in the code.
I apologize, Madison.
I thought that I had the right to do it though, but I don't.
Okay.
It's interesting.
I was looking for something else, and I came across a city council or a work session from
2017 or 2016, actually, and they were talking about whether they even wanted this to be
in the code.
And they kind of took a straw poll, and it was four to three and then they decided to
send it to . . . So I'm thinking they never wanted the appearance of conflict of interest
to be in the code, and it is most certainly not there, unless it's in the aspirational
code.
You and I were both on the Charter Review Committee.
When these four were written, for example, the definition of prohibited improper EGA,
this was not even the $500, $1,000 discussion.
When we left the Charter Review, we were thinking in terms of all the other cities that had
defined it, and so this was kind of an unfortunate situation where all of these . . . the code
that was passed essentially ignored these, and so whether or not that makes the code
that was passed any less legitimate is not a question that I can answer, but the citizens
and the task force said, "These are the things that we want included."
Overwhelmingly.
And these were basically ignored by the 2017 city council.
When they went to work, by the way excluding citizens from the task force, when they went
off in a dark corner, they started writing an ethics code.
These four things were never discussed.
And number four, administration and enforcement of ethics ordinance coupled with strong and
meaningful remedies for infraction.
Exactly.
Definitely not there.
We can write in the water.
That's it.
These citizen mandates, they were ignored when the code was drafted.
That may be uncomfortable, but that's a fact.
Any more comments on this?
Is there a direction to . . . would you like me to bring anything back in regards to this?
I can just say, if we do tweak our code, we got a lot of work to do.
But the fact that 80% of the people . . . I remember as we were finishing the charter
review, the chairman said, "Well, there's one thing I think won't pass and that's the
ethics code."
And I thought, I think it will.
I mean, I think we're in the same place.
We're in the same place with our recommendations right now, is if we can work for the next
six months and come up with something and present it, and at this point I think we're
just spinning our wheels.
I think, I think there needs to be . . . I don't know, I mean, I don't like the idea
of the City Council to tell us what to do, because that's not what we're supposed . . . that
is not the entity that we are, but at the same time I think that we need to open up
a conversation in terms of how to move forward and make this functional for the city.
This is going to sound like a really country saying it, it's like the fox guarding the
chicken coop.
And not to say that the City Council members should not have input.
I would never, ever say that, but I think the citizens should really be consulted and
their consultation was very, very fast, and they came back and overwhelmingly said, "Yes,
80 percent, 80 percent said we want this, and we've had a very weak hope, so . . ."
Well, I think there's no direction right now other than to just make a note that, that
really the things that the citizens voted in are not in this code.
It is a consensus, I'm not overstating.
Okay, so let's, we're going to go back to item B, Receive Your Report, Hold a Discussion,
and give staff direction regarding the future meeting topics.
We are scheduled to have a meeting in July, right?
August.
Yes, August is our next regularly scheduled meeting.
Okay.
I would recommend that there be three things on the agenda, and one would be, or two things.
We can work on what we sent and we can, you know, propose changes to tighten it up, and
then recommend that the Council be invited to the next meeting, and I guess we'll need
to figure out a format for that, because I think we need to be guiding this discussion.
I think they should be invited to observe, and I think our, our agenda item should be
incorporating, either incorporating or rejecting their feedback to our previously proposed
amendments.
And we can go through, I'm happy to go through and make a list of all the actionable input
that they gave during the work session, and then we can go one by one through those and
decide if we want to incorporate it or not.
I don't know what else to do.
I think that sounds really good, because we are listening to them, but it's time they
listen to us.
You know, we are smart people.
We have spent many, many hours on this.
I felt really disrespected that, honestly, I think we know a lot more about city ethics
than all of them put together, and it's not because they're not smart people, but they
have so many more things to think about.
So, I'm sure I'm going to really make some people mad by that comment, but it was disrespectful.
I'd like to revisit the next meeting, the idea of having a consultant come and talk
to us, because I think we could definitely run some ideas by the consultant and get some
feedback on how to present these ideas in a way that doesn't seem so threatening to
the city council, so we can be more cooperative rather than adversarial.
And I think an outside consultant could be very helpful.
I don't know who that would be.
You and somebody, but we can talk about that at the next meeting.
So, we have to go through a procurement process according to state law.
I can look and basically present here some options.
It could even be more than one person, based on the direction today.
I can bring that back.
Options for a consultant at the next meeting.
That sounds good.
So, we're talking about starting to work on revisions.
I like the idea of looking at everything that they raised, considering a consultant.
Discussing the format.
Further discussing the format that we'll use for a joint meeting.
Yep.
So, just to be clear, would you like me to informally invite them to attend the next
meeting?
Would you like to send them a letter asking them to attend?
Are you talking deeply into that discussion about the format?
I was thinking we need to start working on our proposal to tweak it and then invite
them to the meeting after that.
And next time I think we should discuss how that's going to look.
Because I do not want it to look anything like the Council meeting, the work session.
I want mutual respect.
Not a constructive format.
No, it was not.
I think you should listen to constituents, even if their ideas are stupid.
You should still listen.
Well, I made my point clear.
I feel that they should be part of the discussion and they should actually watch a
meeting.
That there is decorum and people wait to be called on.
Well, I think that's what we're thinking about.
That's not what I heard from your statement.
What I heard from your statement was that you wanted to tweak it first and then
invite them for a conversation.
Okay.
But I think we can still go through each of the things and say this is what we're
recommending and give them a chance to respond to that.
I do not understand you.
Okay, we need to have a meeting to consider what the tweaks might be based on what
the concerns they raise were and then have them back and say these are what we're
recommending and here's what we're doing it and we would like to hear what you
have to say about it.
Okay, so are you recommending that we're doing the tweaks in one meeting and
then invite them to the next meeting?
And that is exactly what I said is where I disagree.
Okay.
Because my statement was that I feel that they should hear and see the work that
is put in rather than just giving them a presentation.
Okay.
Because I do not know what a meeting would look like if we're presenting them
upfront outside of a work session in our meeting with the tweaks that we're
making.
Is there room for conversation in that?
Does any city council member automatically get the right to speak in our meetings?
No.
They're not, right?
My understanding is that unless we have a joint meeting, they are basically
attending as a revenue.
And that was my understanding and that is what I was working under.
But if they attend as a quorum, then it will need to be a joint meeting.
And the questions arise about chairs that meeting.
But so I don't have the answer to that question.
I think that would have to be worked out in an agreement.
Would you figure out as we're starting the tweaking process, what would that
look like?
We've had city council members come to this meeting before.
Council Member Holland came somewhat recently.
And there's nothing wrong with them coming individually.
This meeting is streamed online and recorded.
So those are options that you'll have for recommending that they observe how you
deal with that business and what you'll do without running into the issue of
asking them to accidentally have a quorum.
Okay.
The state is very --
So then in that case, thank you for that clarification.
In that case, can we send an official notification or something that we would
request for them to please either attend or watch online what we're doing?
If more than four -- I think their quorum limit is four.
So if four or more attend, then that is technically a city council meeting.
And that's where we run into the issues.
Right.
That's true.
We can -- I don't know all the options without talking to the city secretary's
office and the city attorney's office.
We can certainly send them a letter asking them to attend, but we would have
to be very careful about quorum issues.
And I don't know how to get around that apart from asking them to let me know
or we could post a potential for a quorum.
They wouldn't -- if we did that and they all showed up, we'd have to say, like,
they can't talk maybe?
I don't know.
I think there's a lot of --
That's where we get into the problems.
Well, but problems are there to be solved.
I mean, I'm sorry.
That is my goal.
That is what I do every day.
Problems are there to be solved.
If we want to move forward and if we want to be strategic about what we're doing
so that we can actually make an impact, then we're going to have to be at
sometimes trying to figure out how to address something that does not have
an easy solution at this moment, and we also need to be a little bit more
putting our foot forward in other ways, because right now we are very passive
in our goal and we are very -- and this is where we're at.
We're spinning our wheels.
And so I'm sorry if that sounds controversial, but at the same time,
if we want to solve a problem, then we need to take the steps to do that.
I like the idea of having a meeting where we come up -- I would like to look at
those two sections where we propose changes and decide -- because obviously
they're going to look at the whole sections -- is there further tweaking on
these two sections, and then we would have it ready to vote on, I guess,
the following session.
At that point, that's when I'd like to figure out how we involve counsel.
We wouldn't have made the final decision, but we would have talked a bit about
where we think that needs to go.
So I'm not trying to leave them out, but I'm also not trying to get ourselves
in trouble, or the counsel.
So we want to follow this.
That is not my intent.
Yeah, no, I know.
My intent is to educate, and for them to actually get a sense of what we're
doing.
Andrea, I did not hear it that way.
I just -- I think -- but I do like the idea of having some way to have
discussions, and I think we just need next time to think about how we're
going to do this.
So -- but if we are just working on the beginning of the tweaking and going
through the concerns, then I think we would just be saying, here's what we're
looking at, and we wouldn't have voted by then, because we would have just
said, this is where we're thinking.
Well, that part doesn't matter to me, if we have voted on it or not.
Because really -- and here's -- I mean, that is -- I'm an educator, and if it
takes us educating the city council of what we're doing by them, by ensuring
that they're actually watching what we're doing, then that's called modeling.
I think that's great.
I know.
So that is the way we're proposing this.
Yes.
Okay.
So let's go with that path.
Okay.
So my understanding of the direction for next meeting is look at the
feedback, specific feedback from the council meeting to try to incorporate it
into any revisions that you would like to make.
Have -- discuss options for a consultant, potentially, and then also discuss
options for how to engage the council on future revisions for August 5th.
Everybody feel the same?
Yes.
Thank you very much, all of you, for your discussion.
I appreciate it.
So it is now 6.58 p.m., and this meeting is adjourned.
Move to adjourn?
Yes.
Okay.