>> Because we have everybody but Diane.
>> Correct.
>> Okay. So, good evening.
It's Monday, March 10th, 2025, 530 p.m. This is the Board
of Ethics meeting and I don't --
do we have any presentations from the public?
I don't see any.
Okay. We're going to move on to items for consideration.
Item A, BOE25-011, consider approval of minutes
for February 10th, 2025.
Does anybody have any?
>> I move that we approve the minutes from February 8th.
>> Second.
>> Patricia made the motion.
Ann Zoltner seconded.
All in favor?
>> Aye.
>> Aye. Passes unanimously.
Item B, BOE25-012, management reports.
Update on 2025 packet and proposed amendments.
Take it away, Madison.
>> All right.
So, on March 4th, so last Tuesday, I presented
to the City Council the proposed -- two proposed amendments.
The council gave direction to adopt almost all of it,
including restructuring the definition
of conflicting interests and conflict of interest,
as we have kind of discussed, setting a 30-day deadline
by which recusals must be filed,
allowing those who remain valid for a year.
They did give direction to also add a note about Chapter 171
of the Texas Government Code, or Texas Local Government Code,
just because there's also an accusal requirement
in there as well.
They gave direction to adopt most of the red lines
in the burden of proof section, except that they wanted
to change where you all had used facts that weren't the evidence.
And then they also -- this last point was actually a cleanup item.
We had made a change in the rules and procedure
that we were just going to clean up in the ordinance,
but they decided they didn't like that.
So now we're taking out the complainant and responding.
They still have a right to be represented by legal counsel,
but they removed another representative.
So that's a very brief summary of what happened,
but that's the direction that they gave.
Answer questions or pull up -- I don't know, whatever you want,
but I'll let you take it from here.
>> What section of the government code?
>> 171. I think it's the local government code,
the Texas local government code.
It's got --
>> I have to double-check again.
>> I believe the code is still, as they mentioned,
weaker than state law, and so they want to make sure that --
>> Yeah, they were talking
about how state law has its own kind of ethics,
accusal requirements, the complex of interest.
It has larger limits, essentially,
than what the city's does.
So they just were -- they wanted to make sure that,
if for some reason, the 30-day time period, that code,
to my understanding, requires you to basically file before you
vote on an item, if you're going to recuse from it.
So they didn't want people to be confused
about the 30-day deadline, essentially, if that makes sense.
>> What was their reasoning
on not letting someone have a representative help them out?
Did they say?
>> My understanding was that they were concerned
that essentially that a representative could be a bad --
a bad-faith actor, basically,
so they could be soliciting people to submit complaints,
only to represent them at the hearing, and then do that over
and over again, was what the reasoning was.
They did discuss kind of the cost burden
of having a legal counsel, but ultimately,
they decided this direction.
So when we present these red lines, we'll take forward a
change to the rules of procedure as well, sort of like that.
>> Dustin?
>> You mentioned the cost burden of having a legal counsel
for the complainant or the respondent.
There is some discussion about the cost
of the third-party law firm reviewing our changes,
and I was unclear on that.
I mean, as a viewer of the work session, it sounded
like they wanted some clarity on how much we as a board spent,
and I have no idea -- the only interaction I've had
with the outside firm is at the panel meetings
when there's a representative of the firm here,
which I thought was a requirement
in our rules of procedure, and I don't know what --
I don't know if we had any -- it appeared that there was concern
over some cost to the city that we, as a board, had incurred,
and I'm not aware of any cost that we are required.
>> The way I heard it was that they were mad
because they thought we had never consulted
with an attorney, which is absolutely not true.
There was pretty extensive conversation
with a law firm called Borquist,
which Madison spelled out his name, and he was assuming
that citizens would be involved in it
and that they would need legal help,
but the council decided not to consult citizens,
and a city council member wrote the code with Borquist himself.
So, yes, there were, in fact, five hours
for which the city paid $3,000.
Remember, this was 2018, maybe, 2018, so it would cost more now.
But, yes, a law firm was consulted.
>> I guess in the revisions, though,
that I think that was the question.
>> Right.
>> What did we spend on outside consultation from the law firm
on advising or reviewing the amendments between the codes?
>> Right. I haven't received the invoice for that yet,
so I haven't provided that information,
but I can provide counsel as well as y'all.
We did have the Borquist law firm review the revisions before we
brought it to council, but after y'all had kind of finished
with it, they didn't have any concerns, really.
They had a couple, but they weren't substantive.
So, that was the information that we gave to council
about that at that time.
Does that answer your question?
>> Yes.
I mean, that wasn't a -- I guess -- I don't --
it was a question because I didn't know that that occurred.
>> Yeah.
>> And I just wanted to make sure I understood
that because in the meeting, in the work session,
it sounded like they were questioning, you know,
were we being prudent with the city's funds
on using you in an outside firm?
>> Yeah.
>> And I hadn't -- if I was there,
I couldn't have answered that at the time.
So, thank you.
>> David, did you still have that?
>> Yes, I did.
Madison, I just have one question to clarify.
There was some confusion at the end of that work session.
Brian Beck had a question that I also had,
and a couple of citizens had called me since then.
Proposal two, as you presented it,
the very last sentence there, and I'm trying to compare
that with what I'm looking up here.
A complainant's failure to testify at a hearing,
other than a hearing held to determine frivolity,
shall be grounds for dismissal of a complaint.
Does that still stand, or not?
>> Yes, it does.
That wasn't -- removing that wasn't a part of proposal two.
>> So, the complainant must testify, or it's all over?
>> Correct.
>> Okay.
>> But that was -- a change to that wasn't presented
to the city council, that was not included
in the proposal from the board to change.
>> Okay.
>> I still think that the two things we got
through were a win.
I was troubled by the very adversarial tone
that council took, particularly toward the board.
I don't know where that's coming from, but it was hard for me
to sit in the room.
I left about halfway through and just was afraid I was going
to blow up.
So, I have calmed down, and I think it was --
just getting the conflict of interest,
that getting that pending matter wording out of this,
is such a game changer.
It means that we won't be just grappling
with little tiny things about recusal and whether
or not somebody's -- I mean, pretty much all
of the cases we've had have been
because somebody did something wrong before they voted,
and this broadens it so that we're not just looking
at that tight timeline.
The way it was written, you could vote,
and then you could do whatever you were going to do,
because it would no longer be a pending matter.
And that -- so, that's huge.
That will change, in my view, in a very positive way,
and I hope we'll get rid of some of these nitpicky --
you know, my hope is that hearings will be a rare thing,
and I'm tired of these little things about solar panels
and whether or not you're affiliated
with a university or -- that's -- yeah.
So, I was very frustrated and discouraged just hearing what
the council members had to say about the board, but in light
of the fact that a couple of major things happened,
I felt hopeful, and I think we need to roll our sleeves up
and start looking at the other things that need to change.
So, we'll have a time at the end,
and then we start talking about some of that.
But if you haven't watched the work session, I would --
it's a public record, you can watch it.
Unless you enjoy watching a couple of hours of negativity,
I would advise against it.
I want to stay positive, and I want to stay focused
and move forward.
So, that's it.
>> I think that there -- in the discussion, there still seems
to be some disconnect between our definitions of a client
and a household member.
I mean, there was a bunch of discussion around that
and how we set thresholds, so we intentionally put
in a threshold for a client at $2,500 after some discussion,
and that was based on -- in my memory, it was based
on the last time we made an amendment proposal
that had something to do with that,
where there was some concern from some
of the council members that if we did not have some kind
of threshold that was substantial or at least defined,
that it would be possible for someone
to engage a council member just
to intentionally create a conflict and force them to recuse.
So, that's why we put that in.
One of the things that they discussed with having us change
that -- remove that threshold value
and make it substantial, use some kind of language that --
>> That's what we went back and forth on and trying
to decide what to put in there.
>> Yeah.
>> And we thought substantial was too vague.
>> We were actually referring to something in CREEMS, but --
>> Yeah, I mean, I guess that's something we can figure out.
How do we address that?
I guess the other thing is that there's a lot of discussion
about our -- the intent of these changes and definitions
of relationship status and that sort of thing.
I hope -- I think from our discussion,
our intent here has always been to make this pretty clear
and something we can apply, but also, I have no intention
of putting in some kind of gotcha thing here.
That term was used in the work session.
I have no intention of that.
I don't really care to create this.
I mean, it doesn't serve any purpose for the citizens
or the board or the council members.
I think our intention here is to try and clean up some
of the language that's there, make it so it's workable,
and I would hope that's everyone's intention.
That's my view from sitting up here discussing this board.
>> I don't think they trust us, and I really would
like to consider having a meeting between the board
and the council just to try to help them understand
that we're not trying to hurt them.
We're actually, I think, trying to make things better
and more easy to follow.
I mean, the whole listing out the relations was trying
to get away from consanguinity,
which was what was in the original code,
and consanguinity is a legal code
that most people wouldn't understand.
I guess it would if they looked it up, but there are so many things
in that code that don't make sense,
and then if you don't understand
that the little underline means you need to flip back
to the glossary and see how they're defining it
in the glossary, it's confusing.
So I would like the whole thing to be more clear
so that the average person can just read it and say, "Oh, okay.
I understand this."
>> Yeah, so just to be clear, the one change
that they didn't give direction to that Dustin was referencing was
the change to the way the relationships were structured.
So we had made some changes, including --
or you all had recommended some changes, including kind
of adjusting the way -- how the relationships definition
to include domestic partner, household member --
adding the definition of household member.
There was also the addition of the client relationship,
and then there was kind of changing
when a conflict automatically arises so that as you get closer
to the city official in relation, it is automatic,
and as you kind of go out, it's more
of a judgment decision essentially of like, "Okay.
Is my great-grandson's nonprofit something that I should refuse
from or not automatically -- under the current code,
automatically you're supposed to recuse from that.
Under the proposal, that wouldn't be an automatic
recusal requirement."
But those things, they gave direction not to move forward,
but they did give direction to the board to kind
of revisit them and bring them back.
>> Could you expand a little bit on what their concerns were
with what we proposed?
>> So I think there was -- I would say most
of it they really didn't have big concerns about.
I think the biggest concerns they had were
about the definition of client and kind
of that $2,500 threshold being too small.
They did just give out some options
around materially significant, I believe.
I can't remember exactly what they said, but kind
of a less clear -- or I'm sorry.
Kind of like without a financial threshold in it,
but they also talked about having a percentage as well.
They didn't give specific direction, but they wanted the
board to consider kind of some of those options as far as that.
>> So in the past our language was too vague
and now it was too specific?
>> I think they were more concerned about --
they thought it was too low is kind of the bigger --
they were like --
>> So $2,500 was too low of a threshold for them?
>> Didn't we more than double it what it was before or something?
>> That was their concern.
I don't want to get too far into it.
I think that was their concern about that definition specifically.
They were concerned about the definition of domestic partner,
mostly because they -- I don't know exactly,
but I think there was some concern about --
>> I think the person who had that concern thought
that domestic partner was a sexual orientation
and that's an old -- domestic partner is just an old term
that means common law marriage basically, which is --
>> Well, they were concerned about the definition of it,
which we can revisit that as well.
And then there was a discussion about kind of when I talked
about the kind of -- maybe the hardest thing to describe,
but the -- currently, if you're a relative,
you create a conflict of interest with the city initial.
No matter where you are, within the consanguinity degrees, right,
the proposal would change that to make it not automatic, right?
There was some discussion about, well,
why would we remove conflicts basically?
But I think it made sense to them, like, because it's really hard
to keep track of what your great-grandson's doing,
like if they're before you.
So I think that kind of was -- we got explained during that part,
but there was some discussion about that as well.
>> Do we have a mission statement?
>> The Board of Ethics kind of?
I don't believe so.
I mean, maybe in the ordinance --
I mean, it says in the ordinance kind of the purpose of the board.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Well, it says that we are supposed to --
we do have the right to recommend changes and --
[ Inaudible ]
>> The scope of authority.
I would say this is your mission statement.
Is that -- I think I'm doing that a little further.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Oh, it does -- and then here's where it allows for you
to recommend.
[ Inaudible ]
>> The only reason I asked is if there's some way
to express some sort of mission statement
that says our efforts here are to provide --
>> That we're following the code?
>> We're trying to have the code be understandable
to the general public and to provide transparency
of government for the citizens, or something to that effect.
I don't know what it would actually say.
But maybe what you're talking about reducing the mistrust,
maybe having a mission statement that would say our efforts here
are not just to drive you crazy, but we're just trying
to make things clearer and more transparent
and more user-friendly.
>> David?
>> Yes. And then he brought up something just a few minutes ago
that has actually been on kind of my agenda for some time.
It's not part of our agenda tonight,
so I know we can't really discuss it.
But other people and yourself, and we have discussed what the
value might be of having a joint meeting
with the city council at this juncture.
Because we still have, by my count, at least a half
of a dozen items that have to be addressed, and, you know,
the way we're doing it now, you know, we have a meeting,
they have a meeting, and the ships somehow pass in the ocean,
and I don't know how many more years we have to knock these out.
But I really would like it to be an agenda item.
I know we can't discuss it tonight,
but maybe have an agenda item to discuss the value
of having the council and this board on opposite sides
of the table, and kind of clean up this stuff and see
if we can save another year or two
of taking these items one at a time.
It seems to me that the way the past meetings have gone,
it would be extremely valuable if we can kind of get
on the same page a little bit more, rather than one
or the other of us getting frustrated
after the most recent meeting.
>> I would add, too, that we might want to do
that right before we take some stuff to the City Council,
that we time it carefully, because I think
if we had it now, it would not be.
>> Well, if I remember correctly, that is exactly one
of the things that we discussed the last time we got shut down,
and then when I pushed on it the following meeting
on moving forward with that, there was a lot of conversation
about not doing it, and I think there was certain concern
about quorum and council, but I don't remember the exact date.
So --
>> Yeah, we certainly don't want to violate quorum.
>> Yeah, we have to be close to each other.
>> Yeah. But I definitely have done a lot of thinking
in the last week, and I'll not lie,
I seriously considered resigning, and I just decided that.
I mean, we came -- I mean, this is the best it's been, actually.
So, yay. I just would like to try to figure
out where this paranoia is coming from, because I don't --
>> Another way to save time would also sort
of just giving them, like, an option where they say yes
or no, maybe we could offer two or three options,
like that thing with substantial versus 2,500, or, you know,
maybe give them two or three that we think would be okay,
but, you know, then they would actually choose one.
>> I --
>> I mean, they could choose none of them, but --
>> I was just going to make a comment
that I haven't seen numbers in many ethical codes,
and I know David's wrote a bunch.
Have you seen a lot of numbers, because it's more
about don't do this?
>> We had long conversation.
We had long conversation when we decided on limits,
the very first proposal that we sent --
I mean, that I was part of the board.
We had long, long conversations about the numbers
and what would make sense.
And I'm going to have to go back, because you were one
that actually -- because I had always felt
that actual number limits
and thresholds would be more useful than broad language.
But then council made the argument that that ambiguity
in the law is designed to be there to be flexible.
And that made the most sense to me, because, I mean,
we have to be real, $500, $2,500 do not mean the same thing
to all of our citizens and all of our council members.
So that's very -- it's a very frustrating thing for me
to hear that, on the one hand,
the limits we proposed were not accepted.
Then we went to no limits, and that was not accepted.
And then -- and now our limits are not high enough.
So I'm kind of questioning, you know --
>> I mean, to me, I think there's a larger issue.
And it's a trust issue.
>> Yes.
>> And so that's -- we'll never have anything that's perfect,
ever, but when the trust is so fragile, that's the part
that I've been struggling with.
So that's --
>> There was -- part of the discussion
in the network session around the numbers was some concern
that establishing a threshold that was low
for the client relationship would preclude small business
owners from serving on council.
That was brought up, and I think it was basically, like,
if we do this, then we're taking out a big segment
of the population that might serve.
And I understand that concern.
I guess I would also say that we're not --
there's nothing in this that says you cannot serve
on council if this occurs, if you have a client
that has business before the city
that exceeds this $2,500 threshold that we propose.
It does, by that definition of what we propose,
create a conflict of interest, and you cannot deliberate
or can you vote on that particular thing
if that client comes before council.
And I -- in the discussion, it sounds
like there may be some confusion on the scope of this.
If you have a conflict of interest
because you have a client that has --
that exceeds that threshold, then you can still be
a council person.
You can still run.
You can still serve the city.
You just can't vote on that one particular item.
It's not -- I mean, I don't --
I want to take their feedback, and I want to make all this work,
but if you have a conflict of interest,
you should not be voting on something.
Like, that's all that we're trying to do here is define
that and say, when you have this conflict of interest,
by some definition, if it's a substantial client,
if it's $2,500, if it's $10,000, whatever it is,
if you have a conflict of interest,
you should not vote on their business before the city.
That's all this is.
>> And that's the thing is, as a teacher,
I cannot be on the school board.
I can't be my own -- you know, that's just --
that's just the way it goes.
>> Yeah. And I think from what I --
I gotta agree with that discussion, there was some --
there was some concern about specifically
with the client definition about the way that it, I guess,
interacted with the definition of a business entity,
and I -- it was difficult during that,
because I understood how you could read it that way,
but I don't think that was the intention
of the ordinance, essentially.
Like, so there was basically some discussion about, like,
well, if I own a business entity, am I now conflicted
with the clients of the -- or all my clients of that business
entity conflicted, and so I was trying --
I was -- I tried to explain that, like,
I don't think that's the intention,
but I can see how you could get there with reading it.
>> I think that brings up a good point.
Your client does not have a conflict
of interest with the city.
You, as a council member, would have a conflict
of interest with your client.
And that -- that is part of the discussion
that made no sense to me.
The viewer, they were saying, if I, as a council member,
had this client, and they spend more than $2,500 with me,
then they can't do business with the city, or they can't --
like, that's -- this code does not apply to their clients.
It applies to them, it applies to us,
it applies to other board members.
It has nothing to do with a small business owner
that is not on a board or on the council.
And that discussion, I didn't understand that, and, you know,
couldn't --
>> There were a lot of things that got off on that.
I was kind of like, where are they coming from here?
But the larger issue is public trust, and the appearance
of wrong, which is an ethical concept that is
in the city charter that isn't even mentioned.
And our code, because of the way it got written.
So you want to be above anybody questioning your motives.
That's what ethics is about.
And I don't think there was understanding of that.
And that's --
>> But what you're describing is exactly
that there's not a clear understanding
of what it actually means.
>> This code is not for us.
It's not for the city council.
It's for the citizens who need to feel trusting
that we are all doing right by them.
And I -- that's the part that troubles me.
>> And sure.
>> I'll just add to one of the things that was discussed
that kind of ties into having a meeting with them.
There was concern that we did not either individually,
as members of this board, go to them individually,
or as a body, one way or the other.
We didn't go and have a discussion
with them before we made these proposals.
And so that maybe we can somehow --
I would have questions on how we actually do
that without getting in trouble with Open Meetings Act.
But if we are -- if we, in a meeting, come up with some kind
of amendment, if we can have a representative,
whoever that may be, go to a council member
or multiple council members and ask them for input into that.
It sounds like we might avoid the back and forth
that spans an entire year of this whole process
and get their input, and not necessarily get their direction
from that one-on-one meeting, but we can get some input
about maybe some concerns that might come
up in the next work session.
So we can at least try and answer that in the text,
or be ready to answer that in the presentation, or however,
so that we can be clear with them if this is the intent
of this, or maybe when we sit here and discuss this for,
you know, an hour, two hours at a time every month,
and it's obvious to us what we're trying to do
and like how we word things to get to that end.
It may not be obvious.
I mean, it's apparently not obvious after watching
that discussion what we're trying to do.
So if we can, if we are allowed to do that, I mean,
I don't know what the rules are, if we can make
that something we decide on, if we get to a point where we want
to put something in a proposed amendment, if we can go
to a member or multiple members of council individually
and get their input, I think that may make us more effective.
>> Unless you were about to say something that we are supposed
to be discussing, I guess,
right now we're calling it next part day communication,
but kind of the board's communication methods
at the next meeting, so that I can kind of check
with the city attorney's office and see if we can kind
of outline what you're talking about some parameters
around like what does that look like, what is, you know,
where are you going to get too far out of the open meetings act
versus, I think, like my understanding is like you can talk
to whoever appointed you, but you probably can't go to talk
to every single council member about the same thing
because that would create the forum issues.
But I'll double check with the city attorney.
>> That would be very helpful for us to understand.
I mean, I don't want to, the point of this is not
like battling against council.
I mean, they have to approve the amendments that we write
and there will be disagreement on the wording,
but if we can understand their concerns better before we put it
to their vote, I mean,
maybe we can actually give them a little more time.
>> And I think Patricia's idea about having options,
I think that helps the discussion
because it's difficult, I think, sometimes for them to,
I tried to make it clear to them at presentation,
but it's easier, I think, when it's like here's two, one, two,
three option for what they're trying to do
that they think would be satisfied.
They're recommending this one,
but you could also do it this way because that's a little bit
broader scope while still getting, like,
this is what we're trying to do with the proposal.
>> I think it's clear, I mean, you can, yeah, you can talk
to the person who appointed you, the council member,
and I think as long as there's not a, I mean,
as long as there's not a pending complaint involving
that council member, in which case you might have a
ex parte communication problem, the important thing is
to avoid that walking quorum.
So you can't go from, you wouldn't want to talk to every,
or a quorum of council because they might be seeing
that you're serving as a way for the council to communicate
with each other in a quorum, does that make sense?
Even if that's not what's happening, but it could look
like they're handing you a message saying,
you know, you can go communicate.
And same thing in the other direction, right,
where if a quorum of y'all are all having the same
conversations at the same time.
So that's really where it gets tricky
because if you don't know what the other people are doing,
you're all trying to not talk to each other to avoid quorum,
but you're all talking, you know, a quorum of you have all come
and talked to the same, then that also creates a potential.
>> But if we did that individually with our appoint.
>> Just your own person, and you stick with that,
then that's a way to avoid that problem.
And then I think in a grander scale, there's the joint meeting
which requires getting council on board and posting it
for both of you and all that stuff and then, yeah, so.
>> Okay, so what I'm hearing is our best bet is
that each individual board member talks to their person,
council member that appoint them to avoid any kind of issues.
>> Yeah, in the absence of a formal meeting.
>> I just want to make sure we're listening
to anything you have to say.
>> No, after hearing that, I was like, okay,
I'm going to stop calling on the way home and just see kind
of what, you know, his colleagues' thoughts are.
Go from theirs.
Yeah, I think we need to be on a unified front
with the city council because it's not us against them.
>> Yeah.
>> It's us all working together to serve the
[inaudible] constituents, so.
>> And what I, I mean, we're all appointed by different people
and we, as a, we agreed on each, you know,
every single one of us agreed on what we proposed.
So it's not like, you know, one council member's appointee was
left out of the conversation or did not agree
with the conversation or anything.
Which I find that, that is what I find the most difficult
to understand is why that would create such distrust.
>> I guess we've probably talked about this enough,
so maybe do we need to, are we ready to move on?
>> This is just for you to be aware of.
Still trying to figure out exactly
when the actual change will go before council for the vote.
>> Okay.
>> I would like to do it before the new council,
just so that, you know, continuity.
>> Yeah.
>> Not trying to explain it to new people.
I don't have to.
And then it makes it easier for the training,
which typically for the city council I do their training
at the council retreat in June is what normally occurs, so.
>> On this last point, I do think that's going
to have a chilling effect for potential complainants.
But I think it could be reasonable to expect
that they could bring someone who could be with them
and be supporting them.
>> All right, so they're always a public meeting, right?
>> Yeah.
>> I just think that's going to put out a breach
for a lot of citizens.
But I also think they don't understand
that ethics is not purely law.
It is also aspirational.
And I'll leave it at that.
So, are we ready to move on to item C?
BOE 25-13, Receiver Report.
Hold the discussion and give staff direction regarding the
definition of complainant as it relates to the city
and code of ordinances, chapter 2, article 11, ethics.
>> I now have a presentation
that on the slide is the current definition of complainant.
We can discuss that or what concerns the board might have.
You can give direction for me to do some research.
I just need to know what you would like me to do,
if you would like that, but just kind of a start
to the conversation based on the board's direction last time.
>> Could we just take out the word "human"?
>> I can't remember exactly how we got this on our agenda,
but I think some of it had to do with getting a complaint
that was submitted through the anonymous hotline.
>> Yeah.
>> So, we needed to have some --
we didn't have a way to process that because in our code,
it has to be a person and we can't have an anonymous complaint.
There's some discussion in one of our meetings
and from the speaker in one of our meetings about there has
to be a person that accuses someone of an ethics violation.
So, this is probably a legal question,
like how do we make this definition say there has
to be a person tied to the complaint.
I don't know how to do that and I think that's how this got on here.
>> I don't know the motive of the person who wrote this,
but do you think they were trying not
to have a corporation file a complaint?
That entity, another kind of entity?
>> Most other codes that I'm familiar with will use the word
entity and an individual.
This is too narrow in my opinion.
>> Could we say to the individual who submitted a complaint
to the city must be presented in person or with a name or something?
That's probably a better way to say that.
>> The word that comes to my mind is identifiable.
>> Identifiable individual.
>> Yeah, just pick up human and put identifiable.
>> Is there some reason why human is in there that I don't get?
>> The only thing that makes sense to me is like a corporation.
>> My understanding is that code currently does not allow it.
You have to be a singular person.
You cannot be an entity, right, to file a complaint.
So is the intent to change that, is that the board's direction?
To try to go down a path of how would we change it to allow an entity,
like corporate entities, businesses to file complaints?
>> No.
>> No, I don't want to do that.
>> Okay.
>> I think it should be a person.
And who is willing to identify themselves.
>> And then based on our discussion at that previous meeting,
I think we have a process now basically to address complaints submitted anonymously,
right, we just let them know, hey, unless you submit this,
not anonymously basically, right, your complaint will be considered abandoned,
but providing that information to them.
>> So what if we just put identifiable in the place of human, and call it good.
What do you think?
It's just that human has always made me like what?
>> What?
>> We're afraid of donkeys making complaints or anything.
>> I don't know.
>> Or art bars.
>> So my understanding is like process-wise,
there's not necessarily a concern, it's just about the language.
>> It's kind of interesting because the word human is more
relevant nowadays because of AI and robots.
>> Oh, wow.
>> That's another path you could go down.
>> Did we have some discussion
about someone outside the city?
Do they have to be a citizen of Denton?
>> I don't believe that you have to be a citizen of the city to submit a complaint.
>> Or a resident.
>> Resident, yes.
>> Right.
>> What would be their harm?
I guess I don't understand why someone out of San Antonio would be harmed by anything Denton does.
>> I don't know.
>> But it sounds like it hasn't been a problem.
>> Yeah, no one has from outside the city that to my knowledge, has submitted a complaint.
>> So I guess we want to avoid a group for an organization or a business from submitting a complaint.
>> Or a government entity.
>> And they have to be identifiable so that we can go through the process of reviewing.
>> Well, the identifiable part is already required under our anonymous complaint thing, right?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> And so if we put the, sorry, now we're just defining the complaint.
Even if you're unidentified, you're still a complaint.
Your complaint's just not going to go anywhere, so too bad.
So, but they're still the complaint.
And so if you were to put identifiable person, or human, whatever, then you've removed them from the definition.
So what do they fall under?
Do we include a new definition for Joe Schmoe?
So we completely take them out of the definition of the code, they no longer fall under the code at all.
>> So what would you recommend?
>> Leave it the way it is.
I mean, we don't want entities, so we want humans.
You know, it's got to be an individual.
Also, it indicates it can't be an entity.
I mean, I think it looks okay.
Have we run into a problem with it, as worded?
>> The issue was the anonymous complaint that you brought to us.
I think that's exactly how this got on the agenda, is because there was an anonymous.
And because it matters some question on how to deal with it, we said we would have a look at.
>> Yeah, I wanted to, when it occurred, it was the first time, so I wanted to make sure that you were aware of the process that we handled that under.
But I don't know that the definition of complainant presented an issue for that process.
It was more of like.
>> This is more of a process question than a definition question.
>> That was, so this is the definition.
So you, I'm sorry, you could add, right, so if we want complainant to be the identifiable human.
Then you can, you know, add complainant is the identifiable human.
But then you would also have to add, you know, another word, another definition of anonymous complainant is the unidentified human individual slash entity.
Whoever it is, they're unidentified, we don't know, who submitted a complaint.
>> Well, here's another take on it.
If it's just the word individual without the human, and let's say the individual is anonymous.
And then if they don't come in person to the hearing, the panel, then it isn't heard.
>> But that's what I'm saying.
>> So it's kind of like unnecessary to even say anything except individual, the individual complaint to the city.
So you don't need to add anything else.
>> And I think, I'm trying to clarify my understanding because that, your clarification is saying that if we're making it an identifiable individual, there also becomes an unidentifiable.
>> Oh, really, okay, you have to have a definition for both.
Whereas this, there are only human individuals.
>> Exactly.
>> Okay, that makes a lot of sense, okay.
>> I think you've got to leave the human in there.
And if this goes to city council, I can already see the public comments and discussion on it of what if I don't identify as human.
Again, I don't care one way or the other, I don't need to get into that side of things.
But I don't think city council wants that to deal with something when we're talking, we're just seeing an entity.
Walmart can't file a complaint, that's all we're saying.
If you want to identify as whatever you want, you're still an individual.
So I don't know that it's going to be worth the headache that we put on the city council.
>> I think what I'm hearing is that as it is.
>> No, just take the word human out.
We don't need the word human in there.
>> That's going to open it up to debate.
>> Yeah.
>> And they're going to say what if I don't identify as a human.
>> So I hear two.
>> What would you identify as?
>> Yeah, then you're saying individual, yeah, so that would get rid of that definition.
>> What would you identify as if you're not an individual?
>> A furry.
>> Don't ask me that question.
>> There's lots of things, lots and lots of things.
>> It can be an individual entity, right?
An individual is singular, right?
That's what it means.
>> That an individual wouldn't be a company and it wouldn't be more than one thing.
>> Companies can be individual as far as they're singular, right?
Individual is singular, it doesn't necessarily, I think the reason human isn't here is because
individual does not necessarily mean humans, right?
It just means a single.
>> Well, I will say then the individual person sounds a little more normal.
The individual person rather than the human individual.
>> I'm just going to disagree that it sounds better, the individual person.
Not disagreeing with you on that, but we're here having a conversation about how do we
help break this wall down between us and city council and part of that is by not putting,
I don't want to call it unnecessary, I don't want to minimize, but unnecessary stuff on
their plate because they're the ones going to have to face the public.
The public's not in here yelling at us.
They're going to be in there yelling at city council and so part of getting rid of this
barrier is to say city council, we're here to help you.
We're here to support, what can we do?
And I bet number one on that list is please stop sending us more work.
Like the public sends us enough work.
So unless it's something substantial like the ordinance stuff that we just did,
I don't know that we should really add to that.
>> I tend to agree with you on that.
>> Because it ain't really broken.
>> I mean, that is the way it is already right now.
>> Yes.
>> But we could revisit it down the road someday if we want to, but we don't have to do it today.
>> You know, I think it is so far down on the list of priorities.
It's not worth troubling over.
>> Okay.
So would someone make a motion?
>> We don't need a motion.
>> Okay, okay.
So I would say leave it and we move on.
>> All right.
>> Okay.
Item D, BOE 25-014, Receiver Report.
Hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding City of Denton Code of Ordinances
Chapter 2, Article 11, Ethics Section 3-282, Being Sanctions.
>> It's similar to the previous one.
I haven't done, you just gave direction to put this on the agenda.
Just kind of a conversation starter.
I don't have any research to present.
This is a flow chart that's in our current ethics training to kind of show,
to summarize kind of how if you were going to impose a sanction currently under the ordinance,
this is the decision-made flow chart for that.
I can also just bring up the language, but this is kind of the existing sanctions.
It might be better to just bring up the language.
I didn't just put the ordinance, a picture of it, because it's on two separate pages.
So, I don't know if that's, it's probably too small.
So, the first sanction is a letter of notification.
It's also a letter of admonition, or I'm sorry, admonition.
And then a letter of reprimand.
You can also recommend suspension.
This is not applicable to City Council.
There's recommending ineligibility, which is only applicable to vendors.
So, not applicable to City officials.
So, those are very brief summary of the current sanctions.
I don't know what's most helpful to put on the screen, but.
Okay, discussion.
I can say that if we recommended anything stronger, we would be walking into a...
That's how I think, as things stand now, I would leave that alone.
But I want to hear what you guys think. I'll tend to agree, but I'll throw something out.
Just because this came up in the work session, if we go through this process,
and we actually have a real actionable complaint, we have a panel that reviews that, we have a hearing.
And it sounds like the City is going to incur some cost, because we have to pay for
an outside law firm to attend both of those, both the panel hearing and the actual...
The hearing.
Hearing, sorry, the panel review and the hearing.
And generally they provide some outside...
Yeah, so it's some number of hours.
Yeah.
It might please some of the council members if we
somehow find whoever committed the violation, if it was maybe reached the threshold of a letter
of reprimand, where they did it knowingly, intentionally, or in disregard to the article,
that person be responsible to cover the City's costs for the outside council.
I mean, I think if you're an elected official,
a letter of reprimand should matter to you. A letter of admonition should matter to you.
But I think part of our discussion is we're trying to do this in the best interests of
citizens of Denton and taxpayers. So if there is concern on their behalf, on the council's behalf,
on costs incurred by having this board and doing the business of this board according to our
ordinance and our rules of procedure, it might make sense to recover that cost if someone was
to knowingly, intentionally, or in disregard of this article, create some cost to the City.
So I understand leaving it the way it is because I think this will get some pushback. I think if you
were on council and you said, "I don't want to pay a fine or pay, not necessarily a fine,
but reimburse the City for the cost that it incurred because I knowingly, intentionally,
violated the ethics ordinance." I think that is a way to put a little teeth to this ordinance,
look out for the best interests of the City, and maybe
discourage someone from meeting the threshold of free paying there.
That would be something I would use as an example of how you could present
with K-City Council. Would you want that to be in the code where they would pay the legal fees,
or would you rather just stop at the letter of reprimand and then they would choose A or B?
Because I think that is a City Council thing to really discuss, not just us.
Also, what they do in City Council, if they don't like how somebody is acting,
they start petitions to have them removed from the Council. So they have their own solutions,
their own ways they try to address what they believe are violations of behavior.
So they might want to make their own decision about what would be the consequence,
but since they brought it up about the cost of legal expense, throw that out there. Well,
you could do that, or you could do this. Which do you choose? None of the above.
I think because there's already thresholds to this, if it was minor or unintentional or both,
that can happen. I think there's already two different types of letters that we're
allowed to send here. I think if it is knowingly, intentionally, or in disregard of the article,
I think it makes sense. I think it would make sense if we put it there, we put it
under sanctions for a frivolous complaint. Because that seems to keep coming up in the
Council members' discussions of concern for frivolous complaints, you know, just to make
someone look bad. Well, I mean, we have no, we talked about this before, is this allowed
in this discussion? I think you're still discussing sanctions. It's still on, that's under sanctions?
Yes. Well, the frivolous section references back to these sanctions, so yes. Okay, so I mean,
then it makes sense to me, because we're not penalizing someone for making a mistake,
right? We're not talking about, I had no idea that this occurred, I didn't know that I had this
conflict of interest, or my, you know, my brother had this ownership in this, like we're taking that,
we're talking about, I intentionally, I knowingly disregarded this ethics ordinance. I cost the city
money, we're volunteering our time, which is not going to be recovered, which is, that's why we're
here, we're volunteering our time to do this. But there's no point in, you know, taking money out
of the city budget if you go to something useful for someone making a choice to violate this code,
because whatever benefit they're getting out of making that, you know, violating that ordinance,
they think outweighs the penalty of a letter of reprimand, so.
No, it's going to have something else. Okay.
That makes a lot of sense to me, because it is costly to have a
frivolous complaint. Yeah, and I don't know what the cost is, it's probably, I don't know.
I don't know, maybe if it's more than an hour or two, it ends up pretty quick. I would say I budget
$2,000 for an ethics complaint. Okay. And I think we need to differentiate in this the same way we
did with what the letters are labeled, even though the contents of the letters may be similar.
If it, if it isn't, like, you can violate the ethics ordinance and it's an honest mistake,
you just did not know. And, I mean, I don't want to. To me that sounds less punitive,
and it sounds more like a consequence. You cost the city money,
you need to pay. That makes a lot of sense.
And I don't know if that's done elsewhere. We, a lot of times when we talk about these changes,
we look at other codes and what they do, but this is, I mean, if we're trying to make this
make sense for us, for the citizens, for the council, and whoever else is subjected to this
code, I don't know how, I was going to say, I don't know how you would argue against that,
but someone would find a way. That's why my fear is that we'll do it for fun.
But I think, I think it makes sense.
Well, the city, the city does recover the cost from their citizens when there's,
the city has to pay for certain, you know, for certain. Right. Yeah. So.
Yeah, $2,000 is a lot of money for, it would be the total taxes for several residents probably.
So that's, that's a lot of money.
Maybe my next question is can we do that? Well. I don't know. Maybe. Can you? I mean, well.
I can't act as an attorney on that.
Yeah, I guess the recommendation will review it. Right. Yeah, the direction is we would like to
explore this option, right? We all discussed it with the city attorney.
Someone who's found guilty of a firmless complaint, paying the legal costs.
Ordinances routinely impose a fine. As for having someone cover legal costs,
Texas follows what's known as the American rule and that all litigants must pay their own way
unless authorized by statute. I guess we could make a statute that authorizes it, but
it's a gray area. That's what this would be. Yeah. Our home rule means ballot. So this is a law.
So the city council would adopt it. The city council adopts it. It's just a question of whether
there's a specific prohibition that would get in the way of covering a city's legal fees.
There might, I don't know. So we would look into, I would look at it and then I think we would have
outside council get to to eliminate that potential conflict with my office. So. Can I ask a question?
Is there a difference, is there a difference between the city occurring cost of a contractor
or city employees and legal? It is part of the budget.
That's my, because this is an ordinance, right? Just like the tree limbs. Correct.
Are an ordinance. And when the city sends out city employees to cut down trees,
the resident gets a bill. Is it any, is it different? Is it, is there any difference between that
occurrence of what it cost the city to remove the tree limbs and the cost it cost the city
to provide legal counsel? Right. Yeah. I think we'd have to look into it. But I think there's,
there's all kinds of weird stuff about. Well, here's the good news.
With this wording that we got, just got through on conflict of interest,
I believe these frivolous things will be much less likely to be presented. So that's my hope, at least.
But I think it's worth asking the question.
We can come back with whatever the answer is. Okay. I just don't know right now. What's the
direction, I guess, on that one? To ask if we could ask the person found guilty of a frivolous
complaint to have a legal cause. This minor or serious is the way it's read. It says minor
complaint or serious. I wanted to, I guess I was saying not, not just a frivolous complaint.
Right. But an ethics code violation because this top section under sanction is for,
it's not for frivolous. Frivolous is further down. Right. So this would be minor or serious.
Yeah. This is anyone's intention. Intentionally. Intentionally is the key word. So the way that.
Yes. It's under the letter. It's, it's whatever. Letter of reprimand. Letter of reprimand or the
language is not intentionally disregarded. And the, and the way that if we got to a hearing,
either way, right, if we were in a normal hearing where there was a complainant,
we would get to the hearing, you would decide if you, if you voted by simple majority that there
was a violation, then you would move to, okay, what would the sanction be? Right. So there would
be two actions taken. For a frivolous complaint, it's the same thing, except you have to vote by
super majority to, to find a violation. So that's kind of the two, the difference there.
But then you would, if you found a violation, then you would decide on the sanctions. And that
would be from this list. Right. And so my, my understanding is the direction is to look into
adding to the letter of reprimand level. If you, if you can basically find the person who's found
to have violated the ordinance for legal costs. Is that? Yes. That's my answer. That helps, Scott.
Yeah, I think so. Okay. So are we ready to move on? Item E, DOE 2525. 015. Receive a report,
hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding future meeting topics.
So I don't have a presentation again, but I do. Sorry. Based on last time,
we, there was direction to discuss having potentially having learning assessments be
closed meetings and then kind of having a discussion about the board's communication,
ex parte communication, kind of clarifying that. Can change that direction. That's just what we were,
we discussed last meeting and then we can also discuss the main meeting as well.
That's, I was going to say if we, would it be too quick for you to come back with the
discussion of sanctions and, and add that to the April meeting before we move on? Could we,
since we gave you directions on, on getting some clarification for that discussion on sanctions,
we can do our best to get it, if that's what you would like. I just don't know how long it will
take to get the legal opinion back. That's not, that's not research that I can do, so I'm not sure.
Okay. Well that, and that's why I'm asking is because I'm just wondering if we're,
since we discussed it tonight, is it too quick? If the turnaround is too quick, then I would,
then I would just seek to form for us to continue that discussion of sanctions in May then.
I have a different topic. Let's go ahead. Okay. I just have a something that I'd like to clarify
regarding the terms of office of the, of this board in light of the privilege of the elected.
A couple of years ago, Patricia was kind of left in the balance. You were removed or replaced by
somebody that had just recently been elected. I believe it was Chris Watts. I'm in a situation
right now where the council member that appointed me will be in the election and will not be
reelected. So have we cleared up in our minutes or bylaws whether the term of office here takes
precedent over the right of the elected to remove, for example, remove someone and be replaced by
their favorite? Have we clarified that or? Yeah. So I don't know when your term, I don't know when
your term ends, but if your term ends, it is the elected officials prerogative to put whoever,
to appoint whoever they would like to, to nominate whoever they would like to that position.
But they, they don't get automatically the option to just remove you. It's only when your term
in term ends that it comes up. That happened. So the district, it's their prerogative to put,
to appoint, to nominate whoever they would like on the board. As soon as they get an election.
Elections occur in May, generally terms stop in August. Right. That happened. It was unfair.
So whoever, well, for example, the district three, whoever succeeds in district three will own this
seat. Correct. Well, yes, they, they have, it's their prerogative to nominate whoever they would
like to that seat. And then the whole city council votes to make that appointment. Right. Right.
Okay. Well, the, after his term is completed? Correct. Yeah. Okay. After his term is completed.
So it was unclear for me as I could have stayed on longer. Well, a completed term would not be
three successive. I recommend reaching out to the secretary's office and asking them about
your question because they'll have, they should have the answer. Yeah.
I did want to comment that there was a comment made by a city council member that there are
gotchas in this code and there are gotchas in this code and they have been here since the beginning,
which is what I think we're trying to address. So
a couple times I think they got off topic during the council meeting and started talking about
things that have been there since day one. Which proceeds all the way.
We're talking about future meeting topics right now. Okay.
Okay. Any other future meeting topics? I would encourage you guys to think about any and
bring it to the next meeting. I'd like to keep the X part to a communication topic on the next meeting agenda.
For sure. I think it's a good time. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. So the direction I have just to summarize it for this item is to basically keep
what we have for April if we can and update about the discussion of sanctions if we have that
information back. And then we'll talk about May and April. Okay. Any further comments?
It is 644 PM and this meeting is adjourned.