Okay, it is now 530 p.m. on Monday August 5th and I am calling the meeting of the
Board of Ethics to order. So I don't believe we have any presentation from
members of the public so I will move to item two. Items for consideration BOE 24
- 28. Consider approval of the minutes for July 8th.
So moved, Soltner moved to approve them.
I'll second that.
Andrea Eberhard moved to second it. So all in favor?
Aye.
It's unanimous.
So moving on to items C, BOE 24 - 027. Receive a report, hold discussion and give
staff direction regarding updates to the 2024 packet of amendments to the ethics
ordinance. Oh, I'm sorry, I skipped over. So BOE 24 - 029. Receive a
report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding future meeting topics.
So we have that list in our packet.
Typically we do this at the end. I think we just got out of order so if you would
like to wait.
I would like to move it toward the end to see how, okay, so we'll just postpone that.
So I called it right.
So.
Motion to postpone?
No, I'm just trying to, I mean I think you can move on if you don't get an objection and just bring it back.
Are there any objections to putting the future meeting topics?
No.
At the end.
Okay, item C, BOE 24 - 027. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding updates to the 2024 packet of proposed amendments to the ethics ordinance and Board of Ethics Rules of Procedure.
So you have several items, the agenda information sheet and then some recommended proposed updates.
So if you're, I would like to take a look at Exhibit 2.
Oh, is that the ethics ordinance, the policy, that this, this section?
Right.
Um.
So.
Exhibit 2 of the email.
Okay.
Do you want to look at the policy or do you want to look at the email?
So let me just explain if that will help.
I got sick last week and I got to spend a couple of days actually looking at our Code of Ethics.
I tried and tried to think of some changes that I thought would bring it to what we would like to see and I, that thing is so interwoven.
So my suggestion, and this is just so that we have somebody to begin discussing, is that we take out that whole 2-273 section and we replace it with the general rule that is in the city, the ethics policy that the city employees must follow.
It might get a lot better, it doesn't get into the weeds, so it's a lot more simple and we could add to it, or you could say no and we'll go back to looking at the code that we have.
So what do you guys think about that?
Are you saying this is the one you're suggesting to replace it with the one that the city uses or the city employees?
Yes, if you've ever read that code, I love the way it's worded, it's very positive, the other one doesn't come across to me as positive, I guess.
And it's full of jargon that you then have to go back to the glossary and define and it's the definitions that to me get it.
So for example with the existing code, if we take out that pending matter thing, then we've got to go back to the glossary and we've got to remove that, it's the pending matter part that makes our conflict of interest code unworkable.
So while I was doing that, I looked at five other cities, actually run through them, and all of them, and I looked at Dallas, San Marcos, that was interesting, I looked at Fort Worth, but I wasn't able to find anything.
But I did look at five cities and they all have what's called a general rule, and the general rule defines ethics rather, conflict of interest broadly, and it doesn't get into a lot of specifics.
The only city that doesn't just have a general rule was Frisco, and they have five sub-areas that in my opinion make the definition broader, not more narrow.
So for example in Frisco there, I think the third or fourth of those five is an impending matter, not a pending matter, and it simply means something that is about to be weighted on.
But this is more general and it's just like, don't do anything that benefits you personally, and the city has a lot of go-arounds throughout the code.
So what I did change on this definition was, I went ahead and I added back in the language that the city council did agree to about the relationships.
So I meant it as a starting point, what do you guys think?
I would like to agree very much with what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing so far, taking it just a little bit further.
We're going on seven years now discussing two apples and oranges situations here.
Most of the cities in Texas, and the attorney can correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the cities in the state of Texas have essentially a uniform conflict of interest statute.
If you read most of them, it's going to say employees and elected officials, so this kind of brings us back to where we're, rather than apples and oranges, we're all kind of on the same page here.
If we can bring these two conflicts a little bit closer together, and so I think this is a way to kind of facilitate maybe healing where we've been over the past several years and ramp this up.
And maybe, I know we can't undo the code that the city passed in 2017, so we're stuck, well not stuck, we're kind of obligated here.
As I see it, to probably have two different codes working at the same time, one for employees and one for elected officials, but this is a way to kind of bring them together.
And not have two so vastly different codes, and so I see this as a way to heal where we have been over the past several years.
This is not extreme, this is very reminiscent and customary for what you'll find in most other cities.
The only dilemma here in Denton is that we're forced to have, you know, what Todd Heilman started as city manager, plus what we've got to do now as an ethics company.
And this will kind of, I think, bring it very much together to where we can move ahead from here.
I mean, I like it.
My concern has been that the city employees actually have a better code that is, it's general enough that you can catch a lot of things in it.
And it's basically, I like the wording in there, it's actually real or not, which is the appearance of evil as a part of how you think about ethics.
But it bothers me that the city employees are held to a higher standard and can lose their jobs than the city council.
And in fact, I know it was something they argued on the day they approved the current code for the city council.
The women on the city council objected and said that they thought it should at least be a strongest state law, and it's not.
So we could potentially have a city council person break the law and get in trouble.
And for example, that happened in Cincinnati over campaign contributions.
And at least one of those people went to jail, and I was trying to read through it today, I think two more of their stuff is pending.
That's really concerning. I would rather have somebody that catches stuff before people break the law.
Because I'd rather have an ethics violation against me than go to jail.
So this is general enough that I think it would strengthen it.
And I would kind of love to add some stuff, one of the things that we have on our thing to consider, I'd like to add to it a little bit.
But I'd be so happy if they just passed this and called it good. That would be a step forward.
But there is one other thing. I think the first thing we should ask the city council to do is to take out that burden of proof thing.
And we need to be really strong on that. And then we ask them to approve this.
But if they don't take out that burden of proof, I don't know if this is going to do any good.
So I'd like to hear what you guys think about that.
So what do they have in this code that would relate to burden of proof?
Nothing.
Would it just be that the supervisor in the situation would?
None of the cities that I'm with that mentioned burden of proof, period.
So I think it should be a silent matter. Dallas has a whole weird different thing and I won't get into this so different.
But they immediately have the investigator general, inspector general, the inspector general makes the first determination.
And if they think there is cause, then they call jurists to, you know, retired lawyers or justice of the peace, to make the decision.
And the burden rests on them. But that's the only city that even mentioned it.
And the fact that Dallas is immediately assuming it's a legal matter, I guess kind of tells you where they are.
But no other city even brought up burden of proof. It's a legal term.
We're a, we're not a judicial board, we're a semi-judicial board.
So I just think it has a chilling effect.
If the fear of the council person is that somebody from the community would accuse them of something and they want there to be a burden of proof, is that what you understand them to mean?
Yeah, then it could come back on that person who filed the complaint. And in fact, that happened in one of our cases.
So, okay, go ahead, Andrea. Because that is also what, that is also, I think the city council in their rejection of our recommendations, I think also used legal language in the sense that they have the right to, no, that they have the right to confront their, face the person, and they want to face the person.
That's fine. I mean, I, I, if we want to require the person to be there, I would prefer to say that they have to be there and that they have to be there to answer questions.
No, I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with you because we have this long conversation and that is exactly where I landed on, on the, on that is the fact that it is intimidating.
It is intimidating if you think that you have to provide the proof that this is truly happening, right? If you have a concern, you should be able to voice that concern and then it should be, and then it should be investigated by the appropriate entity within the city, right?
And that is, and that is what's available to them, right? And, and so that's why I think it's like to turn it into quasi-legal, into a completely legal arena, right? Where, where we are using all of that legal.
So quasi-judicial means that y'all are, y'all are subject to due process requirements. So it doesn't mean that it's not a legal process. It is a legal process.
Quasi-judicial just means you're not judges, but you still are decision makers, making decisions that could have, in their government decision. And so you do have due process requirements. So you should be considering those questions.
I definitely think that the person should be able to face their accuser, but I think we need to do that in a way that is not overly intimidating, and right now it is. It's, you know.
Question. The due process that you mentioned, the question in my mind and a lot of other citizens, well, other citizens in this town, is that due process the requirement of one individual complainant or the entire board of ethics?
And that's, that's where I think we're kind of getting off into the, I want to agree with, with Nettie's opening remarks there. It's no secret that I've been opposed to this whole burden-approved thing since day one.
It's not found in any other code that I can find. It weaponizes this code against citizens who would dare even think about a complaint. And it's one of the main reasons, in my opinion, that citizens have just said, go do your thing.
We want nothing to do with this ethics process, because it's going to put me in the center of this room when I know that there's something wrong, but I'm not willing to stand up there and risk my reputation and my family or whatever I do. So it's no secret.
I want this entire burden-approved thing struck even to the point, and I've, and Ed and I have briefly discussed this, if we can't get that thing set aside by a vote of this board that goes directly to the council, whether it's a work session or a regular session, I see no use for this, for this group beyond that.
I'm personally done. And I've told Annette that I'm through with this. If we cannot get rid of that burden-approved, there's no point in having an ethics board in this town. And that's just --
And I would agree with you, because that is exactly, that was exactly my sentiment last month. I mean, I was, I mean --
I'm tired of being nice. I want to do what's best for everybody.
And that's why, and I think it's even presented in what Annette has said, that even being the number one item going back to the council, because if they're not willing to set this burden-approved aside, I don't care what they do with the conflict of interest.
I don't care. Because this is a dead, a dead board. If we move on with this, with this burden-approved hanging over our heads indefinitely, and the citizens going, "Yeah, yeah, right."
So, it's not only two separate issues, but for me, it's also, it's kind of a timing issue, too. If that burden-approved doesn't go bye-bye, I'm bye-bye.
It's that poisonous weaponizing this code against the citizens of this town. So, same, same, same.
I think just silence is the best answer. That does not mean the person bringing the complaint does not have a burden.
It does not mean the board does not have a burden that you have to, you know.
Question. Max, do you have any idea, schedule-wise, this summer or fall, how does this work session, or what would be next after that last?
If we have proposals to bring back to them, I can get us on the work session schedule. My guess is it would be probably in December, at this point.
When?
December.
December?
Yeah, but I haven't looked at the schedule today, so it's possible something could open up in October or November. I'm pretty sure September is pretty full.
That is really not acceptable. We had to wait six months to bring this last stuff, and then they got off the track. I think that we should have some priority to come back quickly.
I mean, I can talk to the city manager tomorrow about the schedule.
I may be speaking out of turn, but in all reality, September we're not meeting, correct? Because of Labor Day.
I was wanting to bring that up. Not Labor Day, but...
Well...
We don't have a regular meeting schedule.
No, we do not have a regular meeting schedule for September.
So, it would take October to work on it anyways. So then November, December is maybe feasible.
Plus, it would, like, it will have to be, we will have to make changes in the language, right?
I don't know. I mean, if we're lifting it straight out of the, out of the employees thing, I don't, unless there's some, I would recommend that we not, and we just say, look, we want to lift this, and we're going to go with the wording that you already agreed to on the relatives.
Well, but at minimum, at minimum, there have to be clarifications of things like employees would have to be changed to...
We did. We changed it.
If you'll look at what...
So, I mean, we could bring, we could bring forward a proposal to them that does not have red lines, if that's what you would like to do.
I just think the simpler, the better, and I do like what's, I actually love everything about the city employee code because it is very readable. There's no jargon. It's very clear.
I like the fact that it allows for, you know, whether people, whether you really did something or it just looks like you did, that's not good.
Just the readability of it, the simplicity of it, I don't know how you could argue with it. So I, you've got that.
I think that the council's concern was that it was overly, the restrictions were not, they were very broad. I think that this broadens them.
I'm not, which is not to say it's wrong or right, I'm just saying I don't know that we've addressed the council's concerns.
Actually, as I was reading back through what we presented to them, the very first thing that came up was the red-lined definition of business relationship.
And that was what Councilwoman Jester was concerned about. And when I read it and like, oh, that's the first thing I'm looking at, I could kind of see where she was coming from.
I don't think she read, it doesn't appear to me that she read much further.
So I think what I don't like about our code is that it is so in the weeds on business relationship and $600.
I think we just need something general. If you're doing something that looks bad or is bad, then that merits an ethics complaint. So what do you think about that?
I don't disagree. I don't disagree with you on any of that point. I just think that if we're wanting to present it to council, I really do think we need to.
I mean, because I'm looking through here and there are several things where we just delay.
I would prefer red lines over just saying adapt this with minimal changes because that's, I don't think that that's going to be effective.
So if a council person did not want to have a conflict of interest complaint against them, if they were proactive in being very transparent with any of their relationships
related to anything coming up before the council, then it wouldn't be a problem for them.
And let's say something did come up, then they still have the opportunity to do the panel proactively to say, hey, is this an ethical violation?
So they have that to protect them. So I'm thinking if we present this as is or, you know, with the elected officials also to present it as it's broad in general,
but there's ways that council people can protect themselves by being transparent.
So if you have a relationship, somebody gave money to your PAC or whatever, and now there's legislation or something coming forward about it.
If they're transparent about it or if they're not sure, then they could do the proactive panel and that protects them from having a complaint against them.
So that's two ways they could protect themselves from complaints.
Because the idea is for transparency. I think the whole reason for the ethics board was to increase transparency because people were worried about back room dealings that they didn't know about.
So if there's transparency, you know, then everybody knows what's on the table.
I think my concern about just like saying put this language straight into the ordinances is specifically the disclosures piece.
I mean, the employee, yeah, it's easy to change that instead of the official. The disclosures piece is a little more specific to employees.
We could go forward to them with no red line and basically say this is the board of ethics' idea.
Would you like me to draft red lines for you, the council, to discuss?
Yeah, I'd like to throw the ball in their court to see what they would want to add.
But I really do think we need to get that burden of proof thing struck first.
Well, it's not in this, so you don't have to strike anything if you're presenting this.
I want to agree with what Annetta just said, and maybe this is a question for city attorney.
How can we as a board right now today, whether this item doesn't come up until December or next year or whenever,
how can we decide today, tonight, that that burden of proof is going to be by vote the number one issue that goes back to this council?
Can we take a vote tonight that this is the number one, that we're prioritizing the issues
that they must decide on this burden of proof issue before we'll get into all the weeds on the complex of interest?
Can that be done by a vote?
Sure, you could do it by a motion, or you could give direction to Madison that that's what you want brought to city council first.
I mean, if that's, if you want to, but the thing is, city council can do whatever they want to do.
This is their, they can make the changes, so you can go to them and say,
"We don't support making the employees change unless you strike burden of proof."
And they may go, "Well, we love your employees change idea, but we disagree with you on that, so we're just going to take that anyway."
So there's not a whole lot you can do to stop them from considering whatever they want to consider.
But y'all could give your direction that this is what you recommend, that you think you'd like for them to consider these two things,
but you don't recommend making that change.
I understand completely what you're saying, with the reminder that this is a quasi-judicial governing body,
and we do get to take our priorities, whether or not the council approves them or not,
we at least get to prioritize the order in which they consider them.
So your role as a quasi-judicial board applies only in the capacity where you're making, that doesn't confer anything.
Quasi-judicial is something, is by virtue of what you do, you become a quasi-judicial board.
Being a quasi-judicial board doesn't, it's just a legal sort of term that says now you have to meet certain requirements.
So essentially by handling complaints and having the power to punish people for violating the ethics ordinance,
that's when you're exercising your quasi-judicial authority, and that's when, because you have the power to punish,
that's when your process requirements, equal protection requirements, all the protections that people have in courts apply to you.
Within the members of what we do, it's just those here where that matters.
Outside of it, you're really just performing an advisory role when it comes to changes to the ethics ordinance.
I have a question in the way you're using legally the word punishment, because that is exactly one of the things we discussed.
I don't think the ethics policy as it is right now, we have any actual, what I would consider in a layman's way, as a punishment.
We have the authority to either agree or disagree with it being an ethics violation,
but there is nothing in the ethics code at the moment that allows us to even do, like one of the things that we had proposed was a,
so I'm just asking legally, because I just don't think that there is anything in the ethics code that would give us the power to punish, the way I understand it.
The review committee said that we should have strong and meaningful sanctions, and I don't, I think our power is a letter, and I understand that's shaming, and yeah.
So that's a good question, because that's where I think the due process conversation that y'all are having about what goes in the code is really important,
because what process is due depends on the punishment that you're given.
So the more severe the punishment, the more thorough your due process needs to be.
So when you're talking about this, consider what are the punishments available.
And one of them is pretty, I mean y'all have the, I think the power to disbar a vendor, right, for a year or something like that, that's one of them.
So that's a pretty severe punishment that y'all can do, to say you can't do any contract with the city for a year.
That, you know, how much process should we do to somebody who's running that?
That would be meaningful.
See, and that is one of the things I did not consider as, may recommend.
Recommend, so yeah, okay.
And that's that, right, recommendations, they're all written as recommendations.
Right.
I haven't done enough research to opine on how that affects y'all's status as quasi-judicial,
but considering that y'all have indicated that you want more ability to give this thing teeth, that's a consideration.
Okay, so one of the things that I'm going to go back to is because I don't disagree,
I don't disagree with anything you've said or what David has said, not at all.
I am just trying to be as pragmatic as possible to get these things actually listened and done, right?
So I am thinking if we're just saying, because again, what is missing and what I harped on so much last month
was the fact of if we're just saying get rid of the burden of proof,
because as long as the burden of proof is on there, on the books, there's nothing worth doing.
But that does not reflect any of the considerations of why we're asking the burden of proof to be removed.
And that was my frustration last week, and I think we're going down the same road again
where we want to just quickly present something, but if we're quickly presenting just a recommendation
without the ability to provide any of our reasoning and justification of why we think that's important,
I think we're going to get the same result.
And that is where I'm asking again that we're finding creative ways of making the board
not listen to our recommendation, but to the work behind that,
the work that reflects the actual justification for why it is important to remove it.
So what would you recommend? That's the point.
So Andrea, does that seem, well, I understand completely, I kind of understand what you're saying.
We've really not explained this to the Council when we have it at that time.
So if we have the opportunity to walk them through all of the downsides of this burden of proof,
this is what can happen to a citizen complainant.
This is why you haven't had a complaint in the past four years.
This is why, and spell it out for them, which we haven't done,
and we're assuming that they understand all of the downsides of having some citizen
who has a perfectly legitimate ethics complaint going, "Uh-uh, no way. I'm not touching this."
And I'm going to use myself as an example.
I am going to use myself as an example because when I first started reading the ethics code,
I thought, okay, all of these limits, this is wonderful, right?
This is very precise, this many dollars, that action.
But in our conversation, the rationale that you were bringing to the table became clear to me.
So I'm going to really say my involvement on where we are with this ethics code has changed dramatically
because I have the background, and that is because it was provided to me.
We had a constructive conversation about it.
And so, I'm coming back to exactly what I asked last month.
I want them to listen to the rationale, not just a recommendation.
And saying that no other city, we can find no other city with anything even similar to this burden of proof
really doesn't carry the weight that you're saying.
Here's the downside. Here's all the BS that can happen if this stays in this weapon.
Prove why it doesn't work the way it's written right now.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
I do want to keep whatever we put forward to them as simple as possible because they got off into the weeds big time.
And so, ideally, I would like to present at one meeting, this is why we want to remove the burden of proof,
this is why we want to put the city employee code in.
I just feel that we have to wait a long time before we get to go before council and then if they get off into the weeds,
which I know they've got a lot of stuff to digest.
But, the other thing they did not like was the A1D part where they were limiting campaign contributions.
It's not a limit.
I know.
I tried to make clear it came clear.
I know. But, I mean, that's pretty much all they were talking about.
So, which is interesting in light of some information that just came to light in the paper.
So.
So, every time we send something to them, there's a letter from the board.
You could include more information about the rationale within that letter.
You can use that as part of the presentation.
I cannot come up with the rationale and put it in the letter.
I will come up with it.
Does that rationale, could that rationale be drafted at least in terms of like the broad points by us as a board?
So, maybe at the next meeting we talk about this burden of proof thing and I start making a list of what the rationale looks like.
And we make sure that we all agree that we're, at least most of us agree on that.
Yeah, I'm fine with that.
But, I really feel like we need to do one thing at a time or they're just going to.
And I agree with you 100% on that.
Yeah.
If you would like to just bring the burden of proof forward in a letter with a rationale, we can certainly do that.
Okay. And then we drop, we talked about dropping the conflict adventures, because I just think this wording is so much better than all of the $600.
So, just to do a silly example of a possible complaint.
A citizen came forward and accused council person of seeing them having a meeting at a restaurant with somebody that's going to have like a developer coming, you know, situation coming.
And would they, with burden of proof, would they have to have like a photograph of the two people sitting together?
And without the burden of proof, they could just say it?
I mean, I'm trying to understand how this works with burden of proof and not burden of proof.
That's interesting because I know we had one case where there was a.
They wouldn't allow the photograph.
They wouldn't allow a video clip from council meeting.
We were not sure we could admit that.
We weren't sure you could use that as part of the three member panel discussion, because according to the code, that's supposed to look at the complaint on his face.
And that video had not been submitted as part of the complaint because of the way the code was written.
Which is just.
So we might need to go back to our procedure part and be more clear on what would be.
And we did that already.
That's been clarified.
So that would not have happened.
Could a citizen just say, I saw you having lunch with a developer and I overheard you talking about how you're going to vote on that thing that's going to come up in city council. They could just say that? Without any proof?
I think they could say that. I think it probably wouldn't be as strong.
How would your board know how to do that?
I mean, I can't, I don't want to weigh in on again.
The person I report directly to is covered by them and preventing my rules of lawyer to make it hard for me to give substance to a license. But I can say that again, that due process consideration would come up and there may not be guidance in the ordinance.
But the board would have to sort of go, are we, are we, what is our, you're kind of having to make that decision on the fly.
It sounds like in that situation.
Hopefully with help of whatever legal counsel you have present at that hearing, whether that's outside council or me or someone else.
I think that's what they're worried about is people just accusing them of things without any basis, but then just the accusation itself can hurt them in an election or whatever.
I would like to ask a little question that says, so is there, there's a difference between burden of proof and being asked to appear in a white testimony, correct?
Yeah, right, because yeah, whether you, burden of proof is sort of how much does that testimony have to have for you?
Whereas, so it would still be possible, like, I mean, it's still possible for somebody. It could be written in such a way that a person would have to appear and be available to provide testimony about what they're, correct?
Without it being considered burden of proof, like providing the burden of proof, like providing video testimony or providing like hard evidence or like physical evidence of what they're saying, but being able to testify.
Which would potentially, like if there's a clause in there that the complainant would have to appear and be available to answer questions, that would be different from, that would still be something.
I think the burden of proofing maybe comes into play when, that's when we get into the frivolity part, because they had the burden to prove it. I think the frivolity part then becomes more, more of a consequence to the person who filed the complaint.
So if someone came before us that actually said that, would you rule in favor of the person that said they heard this conversation, or would you say that's not enough for us to do an ethics violation for this counsel person?
I think it would depend a whole lot on how it was presented.
So again, it seems like the counsel person would be protected by, they would have to do more than just say they heard or saw something like that. Which is sort of like burden of proof but not required.
They'd have to present a case, you know, of why they get the, there was a violation in their testimony.
If we present, if we present this to the counsel, with the understanding that we haven't even been able to outline all of the problems that we would get into if this burden of proof exists, where a citizen complainant that has no subpoena power,
that's on and on and on and on, the differences in a board of ethics pursuing a complaint versus a citizen complainant, it's a night and day comparison.
And I don't think we've had the opportunity to do that, and I think that's what you're mentioning, would make a big difference.
So I don't know how we prioritize this to where the next issue this city council has to deal with, and they can't start shooting conflict of interest questions into this.
That's what they've done. They'll focus on what they want to talk about.
And when Madison has presented, and bless your heart, this is not a, it's only a comment, it gives them the option when we go through all of the burden of proof and conflicts of interest,
then they can take and choose the issues that they're interested in and completely ignore what we're after.
And so that's the only reason why I think this is so important, is to get this burden of proof as an individual agenda item.
And we don't start talking about conflict of interest until there's an actual vote by this city council to either maintain or kill this burden of proof.
That's what I'm looking for. I definitely think you're making a great point that we, because we talk, we pretty much all agree that burden of proof is a problem with our code.
But you're right. I mean, I think you have to walk through that before you understand.
But we've not had a chance to explain it to the council about how poisonous and how this does weaponize and kill citizen trust in this ethics code.
And I think there's something that Weschler wrote, which, you know, I love Weschler.
But I think he says that this is intimidating and that it could be, so I think quoting him is one of the things that it intimidates the citizen.
And it could be really helpful to the person who is wanting to behave unethically.
I know he says that somewhere. Go back through his stuff.
But that and then anything else we can think of, I would be happy to write that loader once I hear more.
So I would suggest that we next time we talk about this topic and get it nailed down.
And then the next time, even if we haven't gotten to go to city council, we talk about the conflict of interest.
But yeah, I just think this is very, very critical and there will be no complaints.
It's unlikely that there will actually be complaints.
I have noticed, too, that when people file complaints, they're feeling pretty emotional.
And I think that puts, they're feeling pretty emotional.
And so their view of this is all right and, you know, I mean, that one that turned into a formality complaint was very emotional.
So we want to find some ways to take some of that out of there.
We've got to be thoughtful and mindful about what we're saying.
And people aren't feeling that way when they're filing complaints, usually.
And they really think that the one thing they put out there, you know, kind of like what we're doing, that it explains everything.
OK, so I guess we've talked enough about this topic to maybe move on to the next thing.
Do you have consensus on direction?
I think everybody has consensus.
I think the consensus is that we would like to take a proposal just on the burden of proof, striking the burden of proof section to the city council this fall.
And then next, in a future agenda, we'll work on a letter that will go, that will be the proposal, essentially.
But right after we draft that, and I want to draft the next thing, and I just really don't want to present them together.
To restore confidence.
So why don't you want to present this at the same time?
I think they'll get off on that, and they barely mentioned the burden of proof issue.
But I'd be curious to see how they react to this code as a replacement.
I would, too.
So I don't see any disadvantage to not presenting it at the same time.
I think that when we present more than one thing, they're like, here's the bum, we'll pass this, and the rest just goes away.
That was my impression at that last meeting that we had.
OK, we'll change the wording about family.
Next?
I thought this would not be just passing anything small, it would be passing the whole thing.
It would be big.
I think they'd get off on one little thing, at least the way they were in the meetings now.
And if we need a reason for that, a hundred times more damage has been done to the citizens in terms of their trust of this whole ethics process
than by that burden of proof than some of the bells, some of the tweaks to the conflict of interest.
Yeah, the 5% and the $1,600, yeah, that's all obsolete by most standards in the state of Texas.
But we can fix that.
But what we've got to do is get folks given the day about this entire ethics process.
And they think it's a joke.
And they do, and I don't blame anyone.
From people I don't know.
Exactly, because you weaponize that against somebody who has no legal resources to bring it to you, doesn't understand this, can't do that,
but it's all up to them to bring it to an ethics board.
No thank you.
And there's no surprise why people are just going...
So there's no language of burden of proof in this, right?
No.
So why not just present that?
We could.
There are two separate sections of the current ordinance.
The ordinance itself still has a lot of things like the board of ethics itself is created in the ordinance.
So we can't just take the whole ordinance and repeal it and just replace it with this one section of that.
No, this is the conflict of interest.
But the burden of proof section is not in the conflict, it's a whole separate section.
Then the hearing procedure.
I think this part will go down easier than the burden of proof.
Wouldn't that feel like progress?
Going with this?
This is what we've been working on this conflict of interest all this time, more than burden of proof at this point.
I don't think it would change anything from the citizens point of view.
Well, we've been working on conflict of interest, right?
So that's what this is.
Why not continue working on that?
We'll get to burden of proof when we get to procedures, right?
Which one are we working on, I guess?
I thought we were working on conflict of interest.
I mean, we took both to the council.
I don't know, what do you think, Andrea?
I like the idea of presenting small pieces at a time so that we don't convolute the conversation during the work session or during the memo.
So which piece do we start with?
And I think that's the question.
Do you want to start with burden of proof or do you want to start with -- let me just see a strong poll.
Who wants to start with burden of proof?
Who wants to start with -- okay.
Yes, I'm sorry, just one, not two.
Okay, I saw that.
Who wants to start with conflict of interest?
Let's start with burden of proof.
It would be nice to have a win instead of a controversy again.
Yeah, but you know, the time before this last one, I thought those were really minor changes.
And I'll help her, please.
May I try to ease your reluctance?
I really do think that the burden of proof is a straightforward yes or no.
Either we abolish it or we don't, right?
Whereas I really personally believe that reworking this is going to be a lot more time consuming.
So why not start with the quick one, whether it's easy or hard,
and then give us some time to work on, you know, like really looking at the red one.
Yeah, so one thing that's all yes or no, and then I write the letter depending on what we say,
then I think we could start moving on the other while we wait.
But I think one thing at a time, that's what I've learned from this case.
I would agree.
And I mean, if you look at their agenda, it is a lot.
But I do agree with that, and I understand completely.
But I think using this conflict of interest that we have here as coming from the city code now
is going to be kind of a small bite.
I mean, it's going to undo a lot of stuff.
And I think this is going to be fairly straightforward.
And I think the council is going to have a much easier time adopting a sister code,
you know, to this conflict of interest of what we've got now rather than all this 5%, 600.
I think this is going to be a very small bite for them once we can get this burden of proof out of the way.
This kind of work.
So is that clear?
I think the consensus is that we would like to do one at a time,
and we would like to start with burden of proof.
Yes.
And I'm on record of disagreeing with those things.
Yes, and that's good.
Yes, you are.
Will you allow a disagreement here?
Okay, you're presenting both, or just the conflict of interest?
Oh, just -- I don't understand your question.
Either both this and the burden of proof together, or just this, but not just --
Start with the burden of proof.
Start with burden of proof.
One item per meeting.
And I want it to be simple, because -- yeah, and like Andrea said, burden of proof is yes or no.
With the conflict of interest, I thought it was yes or no to pending matter, and that did not fly.
At all.
It was lovely.
Okay, so I guess we will move on to item B that we've moved to in the meeting.
So we're going to talk about future topics.
So our next meeting is in October, currently.
That's our next regular scheduled meeting.
We do have the annual ethics witness training for that agenda as well.
But other than that, there's nothing currently on the schedule, except for -- I'm assuming we would like to add this letter.
Well, would you like to just discuss?
I'd like to discuss, and I would like to take notes, and then I'll write it up, and --
Okay.
I'll show it at the next meeting.
So at the next meeting, discuss burden of proof, come up with our rationale.
And if we have time, we might start to nibble on the conflict of interest, but I don't think we have time.
Okay.
Does that sound good to you?
The direction I'm hearing is in October, normal business, including the ethics ordinance training,
to require doing, and then discussion of the burden of proof, rationale.
If you would like me to, I can bring the letter, like a word document, essentially,
and we can take bullets together on that, if you would like, as a board.
I would like that.
We can have a rough outline at least of the letter at the end of the meeting.
Yes.
Sounds good.
So that brings us to the end of the meeting.
So are there any more -- David?
Well, just a couple of questions real quickly for Madison.
Just as a board member, I'm curious, have you had any requests or advisory opinions at all in the past month or two or three, or --
No.
If I do receive them, I let you know.
Okay, so there's -- and no complaints that your advice or opinion wouldn't move on, so you've not talked to anybody about complaints that we're not aware of?
No.
Okay.
Actually, I do have one thing that I would like to put in a future discussion of election contributions.
I know that's a hot bet.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
We have a lot to fix before we --
We'll start with these two.
I'm just wondering if we could get some kind of a prohibition against asking for election contributions.
I'm not sure I have.
Okay.
Are there any other things anybody needs to know about?
So it is now 6/28, and this meeting is adjourned.
Thank you very much.