All right. This is the Board of Ethics meeting. It is 5 30 p.m. on Monday, November 10, 2025.
And the first item on our agenda is presentation from members of the public
and I don't know what will happen. So we're going to move to item two, items for consideration.
First one is BOE 25-33, consider approval of minutes for July 14, 2025. And I would like to
suggest that there are two places where there are initials and that they just be amended to write
out the person's full name. I think it's Dustin and Patricia. So with those amendments, I didn't
see anything else. My name appears twice, once is a yay and once is an absent. Wow. Yeah, my name
doesn't appear in that. All right. Okay. We'll come back with these. All right. Okay. I apologize.
Okay. So we'll make those corrections. Other than those things, are there any changes?
So do I hear a motion to approve it as amended? I motion to approve it as amended.
First by Diane. Can you state the amendment? Sorry. The amendment will be changing so that
BOE 25-33. Yes. The amendment would be writing out Patricia Winkie's name, Dustin Publick's name,
indicating that Andrea could not possibly be both absent and say yes.
What else? Yeah. And I should be listed under the ayes. Okay. Is that clear enough? On 25-425,
who should be the ayes there and who should be the nays and who should be absent? I should be
listed under the ayes. Okay. And I shall be listed under absent. Okay. So just replacing
Andrea Everhard with Dustin. Was I truly absent? Now you're making me think.
It looks like you were absent the other ones. I think I was absent in July. Yeah, but I don't
think I was absent in June. I think I was here in June. This is the July minutes. Then yes,
I was absent. So she couldn't possibly have said aye. Okay. So I guess to just for the record,
to get, so the motion on the table is to approve with the following amendment that in item under
item BOE 25-025, DP be replaced with Dustin Publick. PR with Patricia Winkie. And under the
ayes, Andrea Everhard be replaced with Dustin Publick. Correct. Okay. So that's the motion.
Okay. I'll second the motion. Okay. Dustin Publick seconded. So all in favor, I will
approve in the minutes. It's unanimous. Anybody opposed? Okay. All right. So do we need to
go back to the June minutes? I did not present them because I forgot that they were supposed
to be on this agenda. So we'll look at them. We will do that in December. So items for consideration,
BOE 25-034, receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding City of Denton
credit ordinances, Chapter 2, Article 11, Ethics, Section 2-282C, frivolous. Yeah. So the last time
in July, you give direction to bring back information on any sanctions that were
available in other jurisdictions that we generally look at for frivolous complaints. That's what's
presented here in this table. Just for your kind of consideration, because we had discussed
requiring frivolous complainants to try and to pay the city's legal fees essentially. We did not
find that there that is a sanction imposed by any other jurisdiction. But we did also discuss barring
complainants from submitting a complaint for one year after they submit a frivolous complaint.
And so that red line is presented here for y'all to consider as well. Okay. Discussion.
Pull up a definition of frivolous. I don't believe there's a definition in like the
definition section. Let me just double check. And then can you pull up the definition of
what's our baseless? I think is the is what we use. I've kind of thought about this
quite a bit. And I think before we get into the sanctions or anything like that, I think
we should reconcile the definitions of baseless and frivolous. Because they're two very different
things. They are two different things. But if we look at baseless, it almost does not provide the
evidence that it drew in support of it. It's almost the same as saying groundless, which is
the prerequisite for frivolous. And so we're, I think we have conflicting definitions here,
or not not necessarily conflicting, but confusing. What I would say, I would,
what I would say about that is, yeah, I think the groundless should be taken out of the frivolous
thing. And when it's clear that it's brought for purpose of harassment, that's what concerns me.
Exactly. Yeah. So I would recommend that we amend frivolous to a sworn complaint.
Would you substitute the word baseless for groundless? For the purpose of harassment.
We make it simple. The one case where we did find a frivolous thing, it was very clear that
they were trying to harass, harass the person. Whichever way you want to say that word.
What if we just eliminate the word groundless out? Yeah. The two words. Because if it's a
complaint that is brought in bad faith, or for the purpose of harassment. Cut some words out.
Because I think it would, I think it can't just be harassment. I think bad faith is also important.
That's true. I like that. Just make it super clear. And that's, that's going to be a hard
thing to prove. But in the one case we did, it was provable.
And then on baseless, the, so we use the word actionable complaint. Can we get rid of the word
baseless complaint and turn it into non-actionable? You know, baseless just has a negative connotation
to it. So actionable and non-actionable makes more sense than actionable and baseless. I like that.
I know these are like little minute things. No, but they're important. I've always kind of
reacted to baseless like, what does that mean? Yeah. You know, it's just a chemistry class. Sorry.
I didn't even think of that. Yeah. I'm hearing three people but I was, I wanted to make sure we
have consensus. That sounds good. Steve? I don't have a strong opinion about this. I mean that,
I think we've talked about this enough that I know what those terms mean. And I've, I've never had an
issue with them, the way they're written. But if it... I want to get with her. Diane, what? Well I,
you know, I think baseless is a, what I call a soft term. Yeah. Than the other. And I, I think
probably the same thing, but my feeling would be, I hate to use this analogy, but do we want to play
hardball or do we want to play softball? And you know, one is a softer hit than the other.
Well, I think when we're talking a complaint that is just simply not actionable, right? So they filed
a complaint, Kenneth Ferguson wore a green sweater and he should be sanctioned because that's a
violation. Well, okay. That's just not actionable. That's not a complaint, you know? So, but baseless,
while that is an extreme, you know, probably some negative feelings there, but baseless means it just,
it's like, that is baseless. Like that is like a, it's a accusatory in my ears anyway, versus
non-actual. It's like, yes, like thank you for your complaint, but unfortunately that doesn't
violate, that's not a violation. Now frivolous, right, that needs the sting, that needs it. Yeah, that's
what I was trying to say. You need it. The other one is, I'm not going to move forward because
there's nothing here really that I have to move forward on if it's baseless, per se. I think
actionable is also just very much, it's just more objective rather than, you know, because if I don't
like green charts, I might just say that's a very good basement out there. Yeah. I think it makes it
easier to understand and do, as long as we have actionable to have non-actual, it makes it easier
for the person to understand. Yeah. And I get, well, we all understand it because, you know,
we've been part of it now for so long, you know, we have to make sure the public understands it.
We have to make sure that our predecessors understand this stuff as well.
So, I'm worried, are you okay with that suggestion? Yeah. I guess that's what's okay with it.
Okay, so those are the recommendations. So now we're moving on to talking about
what to do. Oh yeah, sorry. Was there anything about the red lines that we presented? I mean,
this I can obviously bring back as red lines to what we just discussed.
Is any concerns or questions about? I think that will dictate the language in here.
Yeah, I think we've got to clarify the definitions and our terms before we get into writing or
rewriting our sections, just personally. I agree. I think those are great suggestions, Ken, so I
appreciate them. So, we'll bring back that red line and then we'll have this discussion at that point.
Does that sound okay? I mean, I don't know that there's something. There's no language,
there's no change in language here. I thought that the main part, the main thing we were trying to
get to here was some sort of sanction for a frivolous complaint. And I mean, the way it's
written there is barred from submitting a new complaint for a period of one year from the date
the frivolous determination is made. So, comparing that to what's in the Dallas and the San Antonio
codes, the Dallas code says that they'd be barred for two years unless they had previously done the
same thing and then they're barred for four years. So, whether it's one year is the way it's written
now on the red line or if we change that to two years since one of the benchmark codes has that as
the sanction, I don't have a strong opinion. I think there needs to be some sort of
limitation for somebody that's submitted a criminal complaint. I have a question and
for clarification, if I'm out of order, please let me know. But we kind of oversee the city council.
Do they oversee themselves with sanctions by any chance? No. So, they have no written
sanction. I know they have sanctions because I've seen it in their body, their rules. I do not know.
I've never seen them. They do have those because I have a question at the end about
next meeting. So, I had to look that up but do they govern themselves in that area? Does anybody know?
I don't think they would for anything that's ethics related because that would be brought
before this. Okay, I was just curious because, you know, they have sanctions because I've seen them and
we have sanctions. And I was thinking about how important it was that we all kind of try to get on
the same page with sanctions so that we can support each other. But if they don't have sanctions
and we're making our sanctions, that's fine. But if they have sanctions and we have sanctions,
seems like we're conflicting a little bit that they should be on the same page.
So, I was wondering, should we see if they have sanctions before we do this? I mean, before we
write this up or is it not important? I don't know what the council would have sanctions for.
I know they have sanctions. Sanction power or sanctions over what I call their their own city
body. They develop stuff in their minutes. I'm going to go on the record to say I'm not sure
it was, I've read through it. I'm not sure it was our council. Well, I was reading it off another
council. But they had sanctions also. I'm not aware of anything like that. And if they do have that,
use them. There are plenty of chances. Well, it's just a question I have. I think there's sort of
a type of sanction that the mayor sometimes has in the past silenced some council people
that he thought were out of line. I don't think that had the power to do that. But I don't know
if that's considered a sanction or just a reprimand for bad behavior or misconduct. I don't know what
that is. I know that there are some ethics codes where this this council essentially does it
themselves and might sanction themselves. And we don't have that. That's not in our ethics code.
I'm not certain if that council's rules of procedure have some other type of sanction or
rules violation process. We can certainly look at that and ask the city secretary's office. I'm sure
they would know if something like that existed and bring that information back to y'all if you're
interested in that. Are we still thinking of frivolity? Yeah. I don't think we are. I think
we're on the topic. Yeah. Well, I don't think so because we're talking about sanctions for
frivolity. And there's already a sanctions section somewhere governing some panel for the
city of Denton. We need to make sure that we're not conflicting with that. I don't know that it
would and I don't know that it won't exist. Is there a question of whether there's a frivolity
sanction for other things? I have no idea. So that's in the agenda information sheet for the other
ethics codes for Dallas and San Antonio. It doesn't have anything about our council.
And I'm not aware of our council being able to sanction anyone for anything and they wouldn't.
And we're only talking about an ethics complaint that's determined by this board to be frivolous.
I know that years ago one of the council members was upset with another council member
and they realized they didn't have an ethics code and that was when the push began. This
was prior to 2016. So that's when they started talking about needing an ethics code. So I don't
think they have any sanctions. And what they did have was pretty much
play nicely with each other. It was behave well, which nothing was defined. So that was when the
big push began that we needed an ethics code. And it's about at the time, historically,
when Denton reached the population that it did in 2016, that city started to think okay we probably
didn't have an ethics code. So that's the history on it. But I am not aware of the sanctions.
We do have sanctions in the code right now in the ethics ordinance and that's what's listed there.
And the whole point of this discussion, I think, was we felt like after we received a complaint that
the board determined to be frivolous, we didn't feel like the sanctions were
severe enough or strong enough to discourage them from doing that again.
Because it very well may have impacted the outcome of an election because it was days
before the election. I mean there's a whole lot, it was fairly frivolous. Somebody just
said that part. They were doing it to harm another candidate.
So I mean there were two parts to this. One was some discussion about the cost that the
city encouraged for hiring for attorney's fees and allowing the board of ethics to
require the person that submitted that frivolous complaint to reimburse the city for that cost.
That was one thing. And then the other thing that we talked about was barring them from submitting
another complaint because it was frivolous. So there's like two levels to this. One is the baseless
or non-actionable complaint that we talked about, which that's just they submitted a complaint. It's
not an ethics violation. I can't prove it. Yeah, and it wasn't made in bad faith. It was done
correctly. They've done all the things right. It's just not an ethics violation. And we've seen those
happen before and that's just the end of it. And there's a very different level of scrutiny
on a complaint that in the three-member panel is determined to potentially be frivolous.
And then there's a hearing by the entire board to look at that complaint and then make the
determination by the whole board, is this a frivolous complaint? And that whole process
was carried out and this was a month or two before election. One of the, what the respondent for that
complaint was on the ballot. There were articles in the paper about it. There were
that the board or that the paper published prior to that complaint becoming public record because
it did not yet reach the three-member panel. So there were a bunch of things that led up to that
and at the end of all of that, after there was the preliminary hearing and then the full board
hearing, it was determined to be frivolous. The respondent had to hire an attorney. The city had
to hire an attorney to be here for the panel discussion and for the full board, the frivolity
hearing. So there's costs there and at the end of it all that happened was we sent them a letter and
said this is a frivolous complaint and that's it. There was no, we couldn't even really say
don't do this again because they could do it the very next day. And so I think the point of this is
to try to discourage someone, anyone from submitting a frivolous complaint which is very different from
a non-actionable or a baseless complaint. I think that's where it's, the first time we went through
this I had a hard time like figuring out what's the difference here and like the, I guess this
makes sense to change it to non-actionable. So then you have like these two types of things, it's
actionable or it's non-actionable. And then there's the frivolous thing which is very different. I mean
that's, we're trying to take that stuff out of this whole process so that the city doesn't
have a cost to this. We're not creating a scenario where someone could choose to like weaponize the
ethics ordinance against someone either because they don't like them or because there's an election
coming up or something like that. And right now there's, other than giving a letter in the mail
from the city that says you should not have done this, it's frivolous. There's nothing, like if I got
that I would be, I would never want to go through that again. But I think if you're someone that
has already done that and submitted a frivolous complaint, you don't really care if you get a
letter. So we're just trying to make it so that we have a way to not just discourage them or make
them feel bad about what they did but to prevent them from doing that again. And that's kind of how
we got to this discussion. And I'm a hundred percent in favor of barring them from submitting
another complaint for some period of time. I think we came up with one year, it sounds like
Dallas uses two years for the first offense, which I would be fine with changing it to two years.
Because that would be an election cycle basically. The two years, yeah. So I mean as far as like
what's posted on our agenda, it's, it's this part of the sanctions I think. Am I right?
I guess it's that whole section of the order. You know there is another cost. We're all professionals,
we charge for our time. If you really added up the amount of money that we're not able to make
because we're here for a hearing, it asks a lot to the lawyer fees. So I think barring people is a
very minor thing to do compared to thinking about what it costs everyone. But I think there should
be some kind of thing that will make people think twice before they go off in kind of an emotional
rage, which was certainly the case with this. Which shouldn't be happening. I have zero,
I trust us. I trust this. I think we went south a little bit on what my question was.
I was trying to get, as I have since I've been on the committee, a little bit more consistency
between the city council and us so that we could go, go down the same path and we don't have to
fight each other. That was my goal and when I first started looking at this and researching,
I came across some sanctions from the city council. Like I said, I cannot remember if it was our city
council or somebody else's. It's been a long time and I just wanted to make, because it wasn't
consistent, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn't consistent, that my question was why.
That was all. I have nothing against this at all. I totally support this. If you read ethics codes
across the state, they are all over the map. The city of San Marcos used to have almost a draconian
one and it basically said, if you're in business, you shouldn't even think about running for city
council, which would eliminate a lot of people, a lot of candidates. They said it that directly.
They don't anymore. I looked it up about a year ago and they've softened that language, but
yeah. It's all over the place, but now I do not think we have sanctions. I'd like to check that out, but
I have none now.
Have we looked at
what Colleen or Waco or Mesquite has for theirs? I mean, they're obviously much, much, much closer
when we talk size-wise. I mean, Dallas is like the biggest metropolitan in the country,
or one of, and so I don't really want to compare ourselves to Dallas. San Antonio is probably not
too far behind Dallas. So when we look at benchmarking for this, we definitely do include Waco. I can't
remember 100% if we include Colleen, but I think we do. These are the only two cities of the kind of
10 or so that we generally look at that have a frivolous complaint process. So Waco and Colleen,
I don't believe, have a frivolous complaint, so they don't have frivolous complaint sanctions.
That makes sense. It makes sense, but I guess it's kind of telling, right? So if our fellow
cities that are our size are not doing this, we should be asking ourselves why, and should we be
the pioneers to do it? We have, we have a history now of at least one complaint that was frivolous,
and in our discussions we felt like our ability to respond to that was
inadequate. So whether it's, whether it's Dallas or San Antonio or Plain or whoever they were
comparing to, I'm more interested in our experience and what to me felt like a huge disappointment.
What if we could do nothing? I mean it was, it literally just kind of disappeared and no one,
it, I was left thinking this, this person could come back and do the exact same thing
tomorrow or the next day. They can do it over and over again just for fun, and I, I don't want
to waste anyone's time, and in that case it was extreme because it's really easy to argue that
that had an impact on the election results. I get it. And I, and we're not, so we are, to me that
this is not, we talked a lot about the language in our ordinance on how things are worded to
make sure that we're not discouraging people from submitting complaints, which I'm a hundred percent
in favor of, and clearing up things that are, that are not clear in our ordinance, but this is not
that. This is only for frivolous complaints. And I, I get it. I deal with this daily with frivolous
wall suits. We're talking hundreds of thousands in attorney's fees because someone wants to win an
election, or you know, maybe they don't like the color of the doorknob that got installed. I mean,
it gets that petty. And in the state of Texas, it's like seven, it's like file seven frivolous
lawsuits before you can be declared a fixations litigant, and I mean, so, and we're talking
obviously the judicial branch is a little bit different than the branch that we're sitting in
right now, but, but we have remedies for this stuff, right? So the Texas Citizens Participation
Act, someone files a lawsuit, you know, for political gain, you know, we have these motions
that allow for expedited summary disposition of cases like that. And while those motions carry
with it some sanctions, it seems more important to rectify or solve the underlying issue of,
but it's fine. Submit the frivolous complaint. We're going to have it heard and decided in
16 days. Go for it. Like, unless you do it five days before the election, then it's not a great
difference. But it does make it, like in this case, I don't know for sure if this was completely,
if this was heard by the entire board, and if there was a frivolity hearing before or after the
election, but it was that the, in my opinion, as a citizen, the damage was already done.
That is exactly what, that is exactly the conclusion we came to. Right. And not only,
and not only was, was the timing such that the decision would be after the election,
it was also in the newspaper before we ever saw it, which also means that there was, there was
ex parte communication, which is directly barred under the ethics code. But so the, if the goal is
to, it sounds like the goal is to prevent that from happening, or to deter people from filing a
complaint. No. Filing a frivolous complaint. Yeah. If I wanted to file a frivolous complaint,
why not just say, hey, wife, friend, a homeless guy that I'll give a hundred dollars to,
go file the complaint for me. Of course. That doesn't, that doesn't do anything except now it
just says, here, you go do the dirty work for me. So that's, that's part of it, barring them from
submitting it is part of it. That was why we had some discussion about requiring them to pay the
city's legal fees. Because now there is something that is monetary that maybe they only want to do
this once. They only have one candidate, this one election that they want to influence. But if they
have to pay attorney's fees, that changes. And it looks like San Antonio allows for civil penalty
and attorney's fees for the respondent, which I don't think that we have discussed. We did discuss
requiring the complainant to pay the city's fees, but not necessarily the respondent's fees.
I mean, I think, I get it. We, we bar that, but we bar the filer. So what, what, you know, we're
going to stop the person that filed it, okay, the homeless guy doesn't care, right, he doesn't look
at it on a box. But that is exactly, that is exactly why I have, I have always wanted there to be a
monetary. Because I totally agree with you. I can, I can, I, if I, if I, if I file a firmless
complaint, next time I'll have, just like you said, I'll have my husband file it, and I have my friend
file it, and I have my uncle file it, and I have my daughter file it. Not a problem. I can spread
that all over the record. And that is why I have argued for a monetary, a monetary sanction in order
that there is immediately something that is, that is a deterrent from somebody to, you know, file a
firmless complaint up front, rather than at the back end. I don't, I don't think that,
right, there's sticks and then there's carrots. I don't think we're going to get to where we're
trying to go with sticks. I don't think we have a big enough stick, nor will the legislature give us
a big enough stick to prevent it. Or even really deter it. Because if that's the case, then it's
okay, I'll just go file a lawsuit. I don't care if Serena Boxx will file a lawsuit. Now you're really
tied up in litigation. And that's even worse. It's so much worse. And so now we're just saying,
good, don't, don't file your complaint with the toothless ethics committee. Go file with the court,
and now it's just really public. That's so much worse. And so I would rather than file a firmless
complaint with us, I would rather us hear the firmless complaint. You know, if they do it five
days beforehand, they're going to make a difference if we sanction them or not. If, if the motivation
is to vote, if the motivation is harassment, and the motivation is to, is to discourage people
from voting for a certain candidate, there's a huge carrot there. So I think that your argument
that there is, that we don't have, that there is no carrot, is absolutely incorrect. Because
the, the carrot for a firmless complaint is exactly that, is you, you use that in order to sway public
opinion about a certain person, so that then you have a better, that you can manage the outcome,
hopefully, in your favor. No, I agree what you're saying. The carrot is, I'm saying we need to lead
people away from wanting to file it, not deter them from filing. It's, it's, you know, don't file this.
There's no reason to file it. It's not going to benefit you because we're going to have it heard
before the election. It doesn't matter. It's not going to help you at all. So how can we do that?
I have no idea. That's what we're going to talk about. But I'm saying. Well, we did it. What time
talk about not allowing any other complaints within a certain time period before the election?
Exactly. Shut down. Why? I'm not sure why. No, no, why, why? Well, the time frame. Council or
other board. Somebody that wanted to do a frivolous complaint against somebody writing for office
couldn't do it within a certain time period before the election was going to be held.
No, I get it. I like that. But who shut it down? Our group did it, somehow. I think we, our groups.
I don't know if we can do that. That's why we have an attorney here. I don't know if we should,
if we can prevent people from filing within 15 days. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe we're
not allowed to do that. Well, in this particular case, it wouldn't have mattered because the thing,
everything was, everything was in the newspaper before we ever heard about it. So therefore. It
was on social media. And it's on social media. So that kind of a, that kind of a, a barring from
filing the complaint would have not done a thing because, because it was in the papers. And the
damage was done in the paper and the social media posts. I'm having a hard time, I think,
understanding why we would not want to have the highest level of sanction we can have to
prevent frivolous complaints. Like that, this is part of this board. Because we wouldn't have to
do that. It would just be an option, you know. And I, and I would say in this one case we dealt with,
barring that person for a year would have been really good. Yeah. I mean it was. But would it,
would that have done anything? Because the means were already accomplished. Yes. That person
already took off. Yeah, it would prevent it, but it prevented him from doing it again. If we barred them.
It worked the first time, so why would it prevent him doing it the second time, two or three or four
years later at the next term? Exactly. What's it do? You're exactly right. I don't disagree with you
on that at all. We can make the, the time. Longer. That's correct. I mean, it, it sounds like your
argument is, is just do nothing. And I completely disagree with that. I disagree with that argument
too. I'm just saying that I don't know that this is the. I really like the idea of having a dead
son. I love that. Before a thing where complaints cannot be filed and if someone alleges that stuff
in social media or the newspaper, that will be considered a purposeful complaint. Well, I mean,
if it's alleged that, hey, I filed a complaint against this guy 10 days before the election,
I can't believe that would be kind of defamation. It's like, well, no, you didn't because you're not
allowed to. We don't accept complaints. So, I'm sorry. It's not how the Ethnic Committee works.
But, but yeah. I've always thought barring it. And we could hear the complaint after the election.
Come to think of it. Exactly. If it, if it's an actual complaint, then why not wait 15 days
and file it after the election. I remember now you shut it down and they're not here anymore, several. So, there's the answer maybe.
I think we ought to look at that, that no complaints zone. That's a separate one. Yeah. That we, we would not know that a complaint was frivolous unless we went through the hearing process.
You are correct. So, that, that has to happen. We, it's not like we can just say, you know, 10 days before the election or 30 days or whatever.
We won't accept frivolous complaints. We would not accept complaints. And part of, I think, the discussion was
what if there is an actual ethics violation committed 30 days before the election? That is
very different. And it may be that a complaint has entered in its baseless or it may have merit and it may be an ethics violation.
And we would, that's part of the purpose of this board is to hear that and respond to it based on what our ordinance says.
But for a frivolous complaint, if we, there's no mechanism for us to identify that until it goes through the process.
In this particular instance, it was identified as frivolous through the process that already exists.
And the concern was that we, there's nothing that we can do about this other than one of those letters.
So, I guess I'm struggling a little bit to see what, why we would be resistant to having
some reasonable sanction that is within the scope of this board and a frivolous ethics complaint, not
a lawsuit, not all of these other things. We're only an ethics board and we're bound by
the City of Denton's ethics ordinance. What we can do is we can modify the ethics ordinance or at
least recommend to the council that we should do something about this to try and maybe not prevent
this or at least discourage it or limit it, limit a single person from weaponizing this.
And I realize that that's a single person who might have a friend do it or hire someone to do it
if there's no monetary sanction and if it's only a, only, and we're only barring them for some period
of time, but it's something. And right now, there is nothing. There's nothing. So, I was in favor of
some sort of monetary sanction, which to me, it would seem logical to have them
reimburse the city for the city's cost because it is, I mean, it's a cost to all of us on this
board to participate in a panel hearing and in a full frivolity hearing. It's almost $2,000.
But we volunteered to do that. We're volunteering to do this. I mean, it's a cost to me to be here
tonight. It's like, we, I'm not here to get paid to do this, but if someone is just filing frivolous
complaints, not a baseless complaint where they just, this is not an ethics violation, but something
that has risen to the level of a frivolous complaint. They're wasting your time. They're wasting
everyone's time. And in our experience on this board, it affected an election. And it's like,
all of the things that we hear about and the election integrity and all these things that we
hear about, this was in our city. And it's like, we have the ability here to do something
that can at least discourage that. They can still go and write a letter to the editor
of the chronic one, say this person did this thing and they didn't like it. And I feel like
this is a violation. But until they submit a complaint to the city, we have no ability
to control that. But this is within our control and we can do something. I would suggest that we
table this and bring it back. I like the definitions that Kenneth proposed.
I would like to consider the sanction or some kind of a freeze period.
So mull it over in your hearts until our December meeting and bring it back.
Can we look at what is the highest, what are our left and right lateral limits for
monetary? Monetary is where it's at. Man, that's where it's at. Put a gag in my mouth for the next
year. I don't care. I already have my office. Take money out of my pocket, I get a problem.
That makes me mad. And that might also help prevent a complaint because they'll say,
they'll have to read that now it's just not frivolous. You may be liable to pay this amount
of money and then they're going, oh, I don't know if I want to risk it. And you know, just the threat
of that is powerful. I'm about to publish a book and there was something that I didn't have quite
done. They said you better get it done now because once it goes to copy edits, you have to pay for
any changes. And let me tell you, I burned the midnight oil until it got done because, so yeah.
I would not be in favor of monetary. I would not. There's nothing in here that anyone of you can say
to me that would change my mind. When you go into the money of people, yes, there are all kinds of
things that play into that fact. Lawsuits, challenges you can't pay it, timing, ugly things.
I would never want a sanction to be with monetary. We would, we would, we would close ourselves up.
We would lock ourselves out behind these doors and never be able to get anywhere.
They would find every way in the world to stop us, in my opinion. And just in general, the person
that had to complain, the person that, whatever. When you're talking money, there's another whole
ball game out here. Now, sanctions and what I call, and you asked the question, where is,
where's the sanctions at? I've always been for what I call tough sanctions to defer people from
doing stupid things. We're in the business of, you know, dealing with people that, that always,
don't always make the right decision. That's what we do here. But, but there is, there is that limit,
good and bad. And I just think that, you know, I could live with a severe sanction. I could,
because whatever that sanction is, but I would never want us to go monetary. But the city,
but the city goes and assesses for cost that they incur if a homeowner doesn't trim their trees or a
homeowner doesn't trim their grass in a certain amount of time, they will, they will go in and
they will do it. And then you, and then the homeowner has to, and then the homeowner has to cover it.
So, and I'm sorry, but grass that's like two inches too high is a whole lot less detrimental
to the city of Denton than the potential of reading an election based on false accusations
of somebody that is on the ballot. I'm just saying, I'm just telling you that there's nothing,
you know, I've been so involved in what I call having to deal with money against people for so
long in my career. And it just gets ugly. It just gets ugly. And you talk about us giving money and
taking our time and that's our money. You know what? We signed up for it. And I, I agree to that. Wait
a minute, let me finish. I agree that we give money and this and that. I wish, I wish we got paid,
but we don't, but that should not move our decision. From an ethics standpoint, I think we
should be, we should be volunteers because we have nothing to lose or gain from, from being on your
monitoring. So I really agree. I agree to your point on that. It's just that
there are some real costs. Yeah, there's some real costs, especially for the,
especially for the respondent. It's one of those stories that when you walked in by moccasins and
you can understand my thinking, right? So we all have different opinions. We're all on what I call
a great committee that want to do the best thing. And we will come to that, to whatever that's going
to be. I've been listening a lot of the comments from where I wasn't even thinking. You know, it
was like, now why do these committees not have this? I mean, why do these cities not have this?
Do they know something that we don't know? No, maybe they don't. Maybe, see we didn't live,
me and him did not live through that, that situation. We were new to this committee when
you went through that. So we're coming from a completely different mindset. And you know,
so we don't understand that as much. And I still think we have a lot to think about.
I think we came out with all the things we used, I guess. Would that be accurate?
I was just disappointed that...
There was really no room. I would like to table this and just come back and maybe look at,
have, continue the discussion next week. I guess we need, we're going to bring it back anyway,
with some options. Yeah, I mean, I can bring back the changes to the definitions that we discussed.
There was some direction to look at the freeze period on complaint submissions or
something along those lines. And then there was some discussion about what are, would be monetary
options. So I mean, we can, if that's the direction during the future agenda item, we can include that
all on the next agenda. Could we please, because I do know that there was some discussion about
reimbursing the city. And I think in the July, during the July meeting, but I think we should
definitely look again at monetary sanctions, especially for the cost of the respondent.
If we're not willing to, if we're not willing to look at the, you know, cost to the city, then I
think we should look at the cost to respondents. I'll add one thing that, I think the idea of having
the complainant reimburse the city came up after some discussion by the council on the cost to the
city that, from some work that the Board of Ethics did. So there was some discussion about did the
city hire an attorney to review some of the recommended changes to our ethics ordinance. And
it sounded like they were concerned that there were, that this board cost the city money by
having an attorney review something. And I think that's where this came from. That discussion was
not related to frivolous complaints or anything. It was just did the city pay for someone to review
these red lines of the ordinance. And so when that discussion was happening, we were also talking
about frivolous complaints. And we talked about how there is cost to the city to go through this
process. And so that was proposed as a potential. Did they go forward through with that? I mean, did
that was never proposed to the city? That's only a discussion. So they threw it back in our face.
We never submitted anything to the council for sanctioning someone for a frivolous complaint.
We haven't recommended any changes to that. I think that's what we're trying to get to here.
Those discussions were only in ethics board meetings that have led up to this where we've
got something in the red line ordinance. But we have not proposed that. And our discussion was,
I don't believe there's been any discussion between board members and the council members on
a monetary sanction or requiring the complainant to pay the city's attorney's fees.
That's where, that's how this, that's part of how this discussion started.
So can we move on to the next agenda item? Yeah, I believe I have the direction that I'll
give from that. Okay. So item BOE 25-035, receiver report, call the discussion
and give staff direction regarding a potential joint meeting with city council.
Yeah, so basically I went to the agenda committee, which is the meeting between the mayor
pro tem and the city manager where they discuss kind of upcoming agenda items for the city council
meetings. And I presented the option basically that y'all had discussed about potentially having
a joint meeting. They were tentatively interested in the idea. They were, there was, they wanted
some more information essentially about what would be the topics on the agenda at that meeting.
And they did kind of express a desire to discuss the consistency between
issued advisory opinions and ethics complaints and how those kind of mesh together based on some
previous decisions that the board has made. So basically they requested that if you would
like to move forward with a joint meeting, they would like a letter kind of explaining
what our proposed agenda is like, what you would like to discuss.
I would like a joint meeting with city council when we are ready to propose a packet of changes
to discuss the red lines with them. I think that's a great idea.
That is what I would, that is what I think would make for a much better, you know, because then we
can hear each other in terms of what it is that we want instead of having this joint conversation of.
Yeah, kind of like a work session. I like that idea.
Yeah, because when some of our changes have been proposed at city council meetings,
it's like they're playing catch up. It's like they don't really know what we're talking about
and they tend to just shoot things down because they don't quite understand how we got there.
They focus on the parts of the code that we're not even trying to change.
Right, and also there was a situation where they felt that our limits were not high enough
and things like that. So it was like, you know, it's almost like a negotiation, right? It's like,
just like we had a negotiation on monetary, you know, like, I can't remember, the discussion was
about what constitutes something that needs to be reported. Business entities and stuff like that.
So I think if that would have been a conversation, like we had a conversation, I think that there
could have been a conclusion that could have been found rather than them saying, no, we don't like
this. And for us to look at it again and then coming back with something that and everything
takes months, right? I think that's a great suggestion. So once we get to the point where
we're ready with the packet, having that meeting would probably, I mean, there were phone calls
flying everywhere in the last two times we've taken things to council and they were just focused on
things that we weren't even talking about changing. I like the work session part. I think, you know,
a little bit of when I first got on this committee was this and that, fighting a lot. And I think,
I've seen, I think, a little bit of them not fighting quite as much amongst themselves.
And so I do think a work session puts it, you know, to where you're not attacking people
and you're just trying to get to consensus on what we both can give to and meet in the middle
somewhere. So I like that approach a lot. Okay, so do you want to convey that to
me and just say we're not ready with a packet, but when we are we'll reach out? Yeah, I think,
would it be helpful if we had some ideas of what would be in that red line? I guess,
I think it will, it won't, I think it will be helpful to have y'all able to actually speak to them
during a work session to discuss those changes to some extent. I guess my concern is us spending a
lot of time on something that they're just simply not interested in and I don't know how to reconcile
that. I would also suggest that it probably needs to be after the next election. Sure, I mean because
this is coming up in May and that's up that farm way. So I have another, I have another idea
because I, I, I'm trying to hear what you, and I'm going to double check. So we are having on our,
we have another item here, future meeting topics, right? Yeah. So is it possible to ask city council
for topics that in the, in the realm of the ethics committee that they would like for us to discuss
and get guidance from them because I'm with you. If, if we're, if we're sitting here and we're
trying to discuss definitions and we are, we are coming up with new language and trying to find
sanctions for frivolous complaints, but the city council will never ever consider actually changing
that because that's not something that they consider to be an issue, then we are wasting our time.
But what are the topics that city council would like to? I, I think the thing that worries me
with that is that it takes away our, they're not supposed to be governing themselves. We're supposed
to be a kind of separated body. I can, I should, there should be some degrees of separation and,
and I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't want to be hitting them with things that I know they're not
going to approve. I think if we ask the question, nothing stops y'all from bringing something
forward that they didn't say to work on. Yes. It just helps set the expectations a little better
for everybody. Gotta have communication between you two parties. Yeah, I really would like,
I would like to hear what they're interested in because I have had a hard time figuring that out.
So, so, and we're not, I mean, they're not, in the sense they're not governing us, right? It's
more like a suggestion. It's more like a, this is on my wish list. Yeah. Right? It's not, it's,
it doesn't, we don't have to, we don't have to adopt it for our agenda if we feel that that is
not, that is a topic that doesn't need to be addressed. But I think it would open up, you know,
communication. And I do want to be clear that ultimately they will have the final say on any
changes. Sure. Exactly. Right. So. Yeah. It's just, again, setting expectations. No. They,
I understand what you're saying about, ideally, but they do govern themselves under the current...
Well, we might find out what closer to together than we think through the communication process.
You know, show me anywhere that if you don't communicate, you get where you want to be. So.
Yeah, I really am curious about where all this adversarial stuff came from because
I don't see that we've done anything harmful or mean or mean-spirited.
Yeah. I'm curious to know where that's coming from. And I don't think we can answer to that.
But maybe that question should be asked.
So I can maybe take to the agenda committee the idea of maybe in January or February having a
work session with council where I walk them through, here are some of the general ideas
that the board has had about potential changes. Which of these are you interested in?
Is that something we can do? I would assume so. Getting direction on what to go forward with,
what for them to work on. That wouldn't be without any specific red lines or anything.
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. So I can bring that to the board, to the city council
in, like I said, January, February. And then in December, the December meeting for us,
we can maybe kind of refine that list.
Okay. So are we ready for the next agenda item, the last one?
Okay. BOE 25-036. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding
future meeting topics. So for December, general sanctions
and frivolity, narrow down the frivolity thing and maybe find
a list of things that we want to ask council about.
Do we need red lines for the definition section based on our discussion earlier?
Yeah, we can include that. I mean, I think I can bring them back. They're not complicated.
No, I think they're just nicely clear. I can't imagine that anyone would object to that, but
I've been surprised before. But to me, that seems like it makes it just more clear.
Okay. So anything else?
I would like to discuss potentially. So our next meeting is scheduled for December 8th.
I have a final that day. So if possible, I would request that we move it to the 15th.
Would we skip to January?
Or we could do that. It's up to you all. Why don't we just skip to January?
That would be awesome. So no December meeting?
No December meeting. We'll move everything to January.
Okay. So it will be the second Monday in January.
Correct. And not the 25th, but the 26th, which would be the 12th.
Yep. Okay. I think that's a great idea.
So I wish you all a happy holidays. And so it is now, is there anything else we need to talk about?
Okay. It is now 6 43 p.m. And this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.