Okay. Hey, Judge. It is 530-ish p.m. on
Monday June 22nd, 2026. This is a special
call meeting at the Board of Ethics and
the items for consideration, it's BOE 26-013,
consider and take necessary action
regarding a recommendation made by a
panel of the Board of Ethics on May 27th
2026 to determine if the ethics
complaint 26-01 concerning
alleged violations of ethics ordinance
section 2-273 may be frivolous.
This hearing is being conducted under the
authority of the Dent and Credit Ordinance
Article 11, Ethics Section 2-2A1C.
And the first for our business would be
to elect a chair for this hearing,
I know, I think you are. Oh, it's a full board of
effective chair. And would you statement a quorum
is present? A quorum is present.
Got that for the record. Yep. For the record, a quorum is
present.
Do we need to introduce ourselves?
You can introduce yourselves if you want, but kind of next
item in the order
procedures is if there are any recusals
and then we'll enter the appearance of the parties, but if
y'all want to go around and do that.
I know we don't have little name cards, so that might just
be helpful.
Okay.
So, do you want to, Diane, do you want to start
with introductions?
Diane Baker. Okay. Long time
member of a couple boards here, who's Denton.
Okay.
Hi, I'm Pat Ranky.
Mr. Pavlik.
Dorthy Palumbo on special counsel for the board of ethics.
And Kenneth Ferguson. Okay. Are there any potential
for recusals to this?
I just, can you speak up? I'm just having a hard time
hearing. Yeah, it's me, it's not you, but I'm having a hard
time hearing.
That won't work. No.
Okay, I'll try to speak up. I think it's this room too.
Okay. So, no
potential recusals?
Okay. Alright. So,
the appearance of the parties, the complainant is
Adam Horwitz, and the
respondent is the city attorney, Matt Rinewall.
The complainant is here, but the
respondent is not. Okay.
And, so,
the complainant requested to be allowed an additional 30
minutes
of time to present evidence, and I denied the request
on June 17th, but I want the board to vote on whether or
not you want to allow another 30 minutes. And he,
they have 30 minutes for the presentation,
but they want to double it to an hour.
So, what is your pleasure?
Well, I was not here last time,
as you know, for surgery, but I would like to allow
him to be able to speak for 30 minutes. I don't
want me to get somewhere, I don't need to be, okay, but I
don't,
you know, there's things we have to, he has to cover, and
things he doesn't have to cover.
So, I think that 30 minutes is adequate time for him to
speak
on what his concerns are. Anybody else
want to make a comment on the time?
I don't
have any comments on that. I mean, I think if we're
just sticking to the ethics, whether or not it's frivolous,
I think 30
minutes should be adequate.
But, I want Kenneth, do you have any? Are we taking a vote
on it? We will take a vote.
Yeah, I've got no comments on the vote. Okay.
So, does somebody want to make a motion?
I move that we
stick to our 30 minutes without an additional 30 minutes.
And is there a second to that? I'll second it. Kenneth
Ferguson seconded it.
Patricia Rink, you made the motion.
So, all in favor of the motion to stick with the 30 minute
time frame? Second, aye. Aye.
It's unanimous. Five ayes.
Okay. So,
the complainant has three minutes for opening
statements. You want to come up to them? I will keep the
time. Okay.
So, we'll help with three minutes on it or whatever.
Do you need to address you as Adam? Yeah, Adam is great.
Okay. Do you want to come to the podiums? Sure. Yeah, I'm
just
going to go there. Okay. And
Madison will be the time people. So, you've got three
minutes
for your opening segments
once you get the podium.
Hello. Hello.
Are you okay? Yep. Yes. Okay.
According to the ethics ordinance, the board of
ethics had one job to do when initially evaluating this
complaint.
To see if it was actionable or baseless.
To fulfill this basic duty, the board of ethics moved to
dismiss the complaint
as baseless in a whopping two minutes. During a meeting in
which
no effort was taken to even read the complaint or examine
whether it did
in fact meet the elements of improper influence. In fact,
at no point
did the board even accurately state what the complaint had
even alleged.
The board of ethics had one job to do and chose not to do
it.
What they did instead was regurgitate legal talking points
from
special counsel for the city that they admitted to meeting
with before the ethics
meeting. These talking points not only fail on their face,
but contradict the foundational ethical standards that
legal professionals are bound to
by the state bar of Texas.
So not only did the board of ethics violate the ethics
ordinance during the
processing of the complaint.
The board of ethics also violated the Texas Open Meetings
Act.
By effectively ruling on my complaint in closed doors,
discussions,
with special counsel, rather than in a genuine
public forum as mandated. I believe that's a criminal
offense.
After refusing to engage with what my complaint stated,
even going so far as to misstating its contents,
the board then pivoted to the issue of frivolity,
essentially
sanctioning me for making the complaint in the first place,
which is what this meeting concerns.
In order to find my complaint frivolous, two conditions
must be met. One, it must be groundless. And two, it must
be
made in bad faith for the purpose of harassment.
A frivolous complaint must meet both of these criteria.
Mine meets neither.
Thank you.
Because the respondent is not here, we can
move on to the presentation of evidence.
So, Adam, you have 30 minutes to present
your evidence.
I don't have it printed out.
Is there something you submitted? I can pull it up on the
screen.
No. I would
kind of be going back and forth, so it might be easier just
to read it. And if you have
those exhibits, I can see the exhibits on the screen, so I
'll make sure that we actually have it on there.
Here and here is the...
Sarah, did you know what happened with that?
It worked the first time we did it.
I can pull it up on the screen.
I'm seeing if it'll work through differently.
Okay. I apologize. Have y'all all seen the
exhibits that were submitted? Yes.
I sent you the file.
I'm sorry, what? Do you want the file that happened
together?
I don't know how to get that to this computer.
Well, I guess I have the flash drive.
Because there was the one that was part of the initial
complaint. I saw that one online, but not the ones I sent
you last week.
I don't know what I was supposed to...
[inaudible]
Here's what was submitted.
Okay, it's not...
It includes all of it. It's all in one
document? Correct. Okay. Are they labeled as
exhibits here? Yes. I think this is in A and then there's
exhibit B somewhere. Okay, so it should be four total.
I just want to make sure they're correct upon referring to
them correctly so it doesn't
throw people off. Exhibit A is the city's
motion... the city defendant's motion to dismiss.
Exhibit B is...
[inaudible]
They're labeled by number, not letter.
Is that our exhibits or is that the exhibits from...
Those are mine. So they're like sub...
[inaudible]
Are they labeled there? Do you remember?
No. I didn't... I saw them compiled as my document.
Okay.
This is...
[inaudible]
Here's this email. Okay.
The very last one was the...
The last one was the June 9th email to
Matt Green Laundry. Okay. Correct.
Okay. Thank you. So I'm guessing that B is
ODV petition and it has those sub exhibits. What was the...
It looks like maybe there's only three total. It looks like
maybe there's just
the motion to dismiss from the city, then my petition, and
then
June email to Matt Green Laundry. Is that right?
Yeah. Here's some emails.
That's all part of the...
That second one. Okay.
This is one, then there's this.
Okay. Okay. It looks like there might be two missing
if that's the second one. And those would be...
[inaudible]
Those would be a...
[inaudible]
June 1st, 2026 letter to the attorney
general from Deputy City Attorney Amanda Brown.
And... That's included?
That's on page 16. That's on page 16? Okay.
Does it have a name? Sorry. I went from the back.
[inaudible]
Okay.
[inaudible]
That looks like the first one. So, that for Exhibit A,
I guess. So, the...
The July 11th one was...
July 11th starts on page 11. Starts on page 11?
Okay. That sounds like it would be Exhibit
B then, right?
So, calling it.
[inaudible]
You said this is D?
I believe so. So, what I have is...
It looks like one might be missing.
There was another letter to the attorney general from May
20th, 2026.
And I didn't see that in the...
[inaudible]
That looks... Oh, yeah. That looks like the June...
This is June 1st.
Okay. What's this one called?
We call it Exhibit C. Exhibit C, okay.
[inaudible]
[tapping]
So just for clarification, those people were the city
manager, the city attorney,
who were those other people that were being sued?
Some of them are from the city attorney's office, some of
them are employees of our Daily Bread.
Okay. Okay, just want to be clear.
Okay, just to make sure I'm on the same page here, so Exhib
it A is the motion to dismiss from the city defendants.
Exhibit B is the July 11th letter on page C, right?
Yes.
Okay. And then Exhibit C is the June 1st, 2026 letter?
Correct. On page 16.
D is the long ODB petition, and then E is the June 9th
email.
This is their petition, ODB's.
Okay, so that's D, right?
This appears to be your petition, or restraint order.
Okay, so I guess that's D, and then the last one is the
June 9th email?
Correct.
Okay.
Exhibit D begins on page 19.
Thank you, that was some good work.
Okay, are we ready?
Yep.
Okay, I'm ready.
Okay, from Chapter 2 of the Ethics Ordinance, an actionable
complaint is an accepted complaint that has been deemed by
a panel to contain allegations and evidence that, if
accepted as true, would support the finding that a
violation of this article occurred.
A baseless complaint is the opposite, does not pledge
conduct that would constitute a violation of the article,
or does not provide evidence that should support a
violation of the article.
Of course, a baseless complaint has to be groundless, so it
's baseless as well, and brought in bad faith, or for the
purpose of harassment.
I find odd that what I touched upon briefly in my
introduction is that the substance of the complaint was
never actually addressed at the initial meeting, or even in
writing afterwards.
In the preliminary panel determination filed by the panel
chair, Annetta Ramsey, she states, in part, "City Attorney
Raynmond had 'improper influence on the matter' by using
his official position to assert the prestige of that
position for the purpose of harming the private interest of
Adam Horowitz."
That's not what I said, but it actually said verbatim on
the very first page of the complaint, where it says, "The
private interest being advanced is Raynmond's personal
interest in defeating claims that expose him to individual
liability.
The official position and resources being used to advance
that private interest are his authority, title, and office
as City Attorney. This is the precise conduct that Section
273(e)(3) prohibits 'improper influence.'"
It goes on to state that Raynmond has used his official
title as City Attorney as office, or city office address,
and authority over subordinate City Attorneys to appear as
counsel over record and federal litigation, in which he is
simultaneously a named individual defendant.
The private interest being advanced is for the sake of this
complaint is not mine, it is Raynmond's personal interest
in defeating claims that expose him to individual liability
.
It appears that there were two arguments that City used for
the baseless prong here, both of which failed, and both
arguments also ignore the entire ethical dimension of the
conduct, which I would assume would be the point of these
types of hearings,
instead implying that the ethical issues are somehow swept
under the rug or waived by erroneous and hyper-legalistic
misinterpretations.
The argument is twofold. First, it states that the City
Attorney has to represent the City because it says so in
the Charter, therefore he just has no choice no matter.
That's ridiculous. This job description does not override
basic ethical and professional standards.
According to this line of reasoning, if the City Attorney
had a bar complaint filed against him and lost his license,
for example, he would be obligated to violate professional
ethics and practice law without a license to appease the
dense and city Charter.
If it doesn't hold in that situation, why would that
reasoning hold in this situation?
Secondly, there's a Sixth Amendment argument, which is the
second, "he has a right to represent himself."
My understanding is that the Sixth Amendment applies to
criminal cases, which this isn't, and it might be later,
but I'm not prosecuted on that. I'm not a district attorney
, obviously.
Well, it's true that he has a right to represent himself in
civil matters. That was never the focus of the complaint.
The focus of the complaint is the conflict of interest
between representing both himself and the City.
This does not succeed as an argument either. The conflict
of interest... rewind the date. Texas attorneys have basic
ethical standards. They have to go by conduct standards
outlined in the Texas Disciplinary Rules.
The conflict of interest rules, click here. You don't have
to dig too deep. It's rule number one, 1.03, I believe. It
's on the first page there. This type of conflict of
interest we're dealing with is pretty self-evident.
If you look at the basic details of the case, that the City
Attorney's Office was alleged to have been tampering with
evidence in a criminal case and engaged in a civil rights
conspiracy, any reasonable person would say, "Yeah, if both
that individual and the City are named as defendants,
perhaps there is a conflict of interest there."
And the concerns over that, of course, are not just
hypothetical. And that's why I brought up the stuff from
the Ardeny-Bread case. Because it's not just a hypothetical
thing that's already happened.
That case, which I believe is a long one, it's our exhibit
D here, which is quite long, but the factual background is
only 60 pages or 30 pages. If you're not counting double
space, it's not going to take forever to go through. It's
extensively sourced.
With 81 exhibits there, it involved false submissions to
the Attorney General by the City Attorney's Office, false
statements to the Texas Workforce Commission investigators,
which were repeated verbatim in their investigative report.
And then it also notes that around that very same time that
the City Attorneys were making fraudulent representations
to the Attorney General and the state agencies, the City's
contractor for the city shelter was engaging in forgery and
evidence tampering.
Presumably, what I'm guessing the goal was to falsely cert
ify compliance and also hide a lot of misconduct in multiple
locations, all of which are extensively documented as well.
I don't believe that that timing there is really a
coincidence between what the City Attorneys were doing with
the shelter management were doing. Because if you look at
that July 11 letter attached to exhibit B, Deputy City
Attorney Amanda Brown sought to withhold some records.
This was actually, to give a little context here, last Jun
eteenth an African American gentleman at the shelter had
been, I wasn't there for this, but I heard that he had been
assaulted by security staff at the shelter.
And so I sought to obtain records regarding communications
between the City Attorney, sorry, just the City officials
and the City shelter management regarding this event, which
had been reported. And Amanda Brown, Deputy City Attorney,
sought to withhold the records based on attorney client
privilege.
Section 9 of their contract claims that they're completely
separate. Their legal defenses submitted to the district
court claim that they're completely separate. They don't
know anything about what they're doing, it's a separate
thing.
And then they're telling the Attorney General that they're
advising them in the capacity as an attorney. And context
of that, the Juneteenth, well that's just mere weeks away
from the pattern of misconduct that both parties have been
extensively engaged in.
Along those lines, of course, in that case, the reason why
this is all relevant is that, of course, Mack Rainwound and
Devon Brown, Deputy City Attorney and Amanda Brown, were
named as defendants in that case.
And they also represented both themselves and the city in
that case.
So, I talk about conflict of interest, it's not a
conspiracy theory about like the Loch Ness Monster doing 9/
11. It's actually a pretty clear cut here.
And you can read, I guess this is their exhibit A here, on
page A of that, they said, this was their individual, just
sorry, we'll rewrite it here, this was just the individual,
these folks, the individual city defendants' motion to
dismiss not the cities itself.
So, page eight, they said,
"No reasonable person would believe that the city attorneys
committed any acts falling outside this course and scope of
their employment and representation of the city. Thus the
allegations lack of basis in fact and law." That's weird,
so can you seriously look at the public filings that they
've made while representing themselves, while representing
the city at the same time previously?
They claim, oh yeah, it's not a conflict of interest, they
're just defending themselves by saying that the alleged
federal felonies that they committed were actually within
this course and scope of their employment with the city of
Denton.
How could the city of Denton possibly go wrong with that
type of defense, conflict three?
That was a joke.
How much time do I have left?
19 minutes and 30 seconds.
Well I'm glad I didn't get the whole hour.
I don't think I'm going to get half an hour, so I just went
through this.
So, to, I guess, wrap this up here, I'd like to share
another story that somewhat dovetails with the pattern of
conduct that I've already outlined here.
On the night of May 14th, 2026, I was at the park by Texas
Women's University in Locust around that area. A 13 year
old girl approached me and asked if I had a safe place to
stay.
She told me that she was being sexually abused by her
father and her brother. She told me that because of that
abuse she had to hurt herself and ended up at University
Behavioral Health of Denton.
And she told me that she had escaped from UBH because she
didn't feel safe there and that when she told UBH staff
about the sexual abuse nothing was done.
And she was obviously distressed, but she was queer,
coherent, and 13 years old. Excuse me, I'm on the street at
night.
And shortly after she approached me, multiple Denton PD
officers chased her down to detain her. During that
encounter, she fell to the ground multiple times.
And I called Denton PD twice to report what the girl had
told me. I then submitted a public information request to
the city of Denton for the police records from that night.
And Texas law requires law enforcement to make mandatory
referral to DFPS the moment they receive a report of child
abuse.
It doesn't appear that Denton PD ever made that referral.
When Deputy City Attorney Amanda Brown submitted the city's
response to the Attorney General, she claims CPS had been
notified that she didn't include any cross report, no DFPS
intake number, no documentation of any kind.
When I brought this directly to City Attorney Graham Watt's
attention and gave him until, I shared it within the June
11th deadline to submit that documentation to the Attorney
General, nothing was provided.
And that is what Exhibit E, I think that's the last one
here, it's the email I sent to Matt Graham Launtier. It's
the last page. The last page? Yeah, you can just scroll all
the way down.
Okay, yeah, it's up right here. Thank you.
I also want to share with them about his deputy's
submission contained no evidence of the CPS notification. I
told them that three out of the four requested categories,
the incident report, the CAD dispatch log, and the call
recording were never submitted to the Attorney General as
required.
And I shared the deadline, he didn't do anything. That's
not an oversight, that's a choice. The City Attorney's
Office knew the mandatory CPS referral was never made, and
rather than correct the record, they let the misrepresent
ation to the Attorney General stand.
Now why I feel like that's relevant for this board. The
city officials involved in this incident acted and
continued to act without any apparent concern that they
would be held accountable in any shape or form.
They moved with all records, they misrepresented compliance
to the Attorney General, they ignored direct notice from a
private citizen who witnessed what happened to that girl,
and they acted that way because there was some type of
pattern in place of them being able to get away with
apparently anything.
And from what I witnessed from viewing the last hearing,
this board appears to be part of that pattern. While these
officials were covering up a Denton PD's failure to protect
a 13-year-old girl, this board was moving to sanction me
for filing a legitimate ethics complaint against those same
city officials.
So thank you for your time, go ahead and pat yourselves on
the back.
As the respondent is not here, there will be no
presentation of evidence from him. So we can move into
closing statements if that's your pleasure.
Yes.
Complaintant, this person has five minutes to close. Would
you like to use that time?
That was my closer.
Okay.
Yeah, thank you.
The respondent again is not here, so there's no closing
statement from him, and there is no time reserved for
closing the closure for the final.
Sorry.
Okay, so we're going to close now.
And deliberations can begin.
I just have this down here as a reminder of kind of the
burden of responsibility to establish evidence.
And then I also have kind of, this is the outline of the
different determinations that can be made.
So I can be on whatever page you would like.
And then there is the potential that we could go into
executive session, as long as it complies with the open
meetings act and I would refer to special counsel on if we
would be able to do so.
Before we move on, can you state for the record that the
hearing was closed at 6 o'clock.
Yes.
You say it.
Yes, the hearing did close at 6 o'clock.
Is there anywhere in that we can ask questions?
Well, we're about to do the deliberation.
I wanted to start by stating that the complaint was read at
the beginning of the meeting and the complaint was that
city attorney Mac Brian wall should not have represented
the city since he was a city attorney.
And what we discussed was that the city charter said that
he does have to represent the city.
So we were accused of closed door violations of the Texas
Open Meetings Act and criminal behavior.
We did not, to my knowledge, have any discussion.
I was there and I didn't have any discussion with anyone
before the meeting and I've never had any discussion with
outside counsel.
Outside of the meeting.
We did not talk with, you know, attorney Ron want.
So there were a lot of accusations made in the complaint,
but no evidence that those things happened.
So what other deliberation?
Kenneth, I'd like to hear from you.
Can I answer that?
Yes.
So that there is a discussion about conflicts of interest
today.
That was not in the original complaint we reviewed the only
section that was referenced with a section to dash two
seven three paragraph E improper influence.
That is the only thing that is checked on the original
complaint form.
And the ethics of the attachment to that.
There are two chapters, chapter three and chapter four that
are called out.
And those are.
See.
Yes.
Yeah, we get here.
So it was sort of individual.
Yeah, I just want to make sure we're on the same page here.
What was discussed was an original complaint.
So the improper influence survey was that city attorney
asserted the privilege, the prestige of the officials or
employees city position for the purpose of advancing or
hard and private interests.
Or chapter paragraph for a state or by the city official
was able to influence the actions on any basis.
So that was what the original complaint was.
It wasn't a conflict of interest.
And the other thing in the discussion or the presentation
evidence was regarding whether or not the city attorney.
I think comparing the city attorney being reprimanded by
the state bar and potentially losing their license and how
and how would they represent the city based on the charter
that we discussed during our panel review.
The charter states that the city attorney shall be a
qualified attorney and law license to practice in the state
of Texas.
So if they violate some requirement of their their law
license, I don't believe that they would be licensed to
practice law in the state of Texas.
And they would no longer be the city attorney.
So I understand the comparison, but that doesn't apply.
I mean, the charter is kind of laid out.
This is what their position is.
And I guess those were a couple of things that I wanted to.
Thank you, Dustin.
Yeah, on the city charter versus the city ordinance
argument about the city charter says that the city attorney
should represent the city.
But then the city ordinance, the ethics code says that you
can't represent the city because you're a named.
But the Texas Constitution is quite clear.
So it's Article 11, Section 5, it called the Home Rule
Amendment, which says that the cities with population like
five thousand or more can enact their own charters.
And a city charter takes precedent and has authority over
the city ordinance.
So if the ordinance is wrong, the city charter controls.
So city charter before attorney represents city and then
city ordinance, whatever you want to read that as.
We're going off the city charter that that is the control
involved.
And then we look to the city charter and Dustin just read
it to us.
The city attorney shall represent the city in all
litigation and controversies.
Hard stop there under the last antecedent rule, this this
last section and shall prosecute all cases brought before
the minister of court.
Well, that's talking about prosecuting claims, not
representing the city.
So, yes, the city attorney represents the city in all
litigation and controversies.
And that is the job of the city attorney.
Now, if the city attorney wants to represent themselves,
they have a right to represent themselves.
You can represent yourself in court just as you are
representing yourself.
That is our right as an American citizen.
We can represent ourselves.
We cannot represent an LLC or entity unless you're an
attorney.
But you can represent yourself.
The city attorney, if I'm not mistaken, could probably
represent all of the other city officials as well.
And so, no, I don't see a violation of an ethics ordinance.
No, I did not meet nor did I see any of my panel members
meet with anybody outside of the meeting at the last
scheduled meeting.
I think the ordinance is rather clear in what we're looking
at.
Let me jump back over to it so I don't misquote this thing.
And that it's a violation for city officials to use their
official position to advance or harm a private interest.
They're not advancing or harming anybody's interest.
I mean, I guess they're going to harm your case because
they're defending against the case, but they have a right
to defend themselves.
Again, that's not what I said.
So it's misrepresented in writing.
Now you're misrepresenting it in court as well.
It's a violation and I don't think that a discussion is a
good idea.
Okay, so advancing their position.
Let's go with that side.
Advancing their position because they're defending
themselves.
Again, you're allowed to defend yourself.
It would be asinine to think that just because they are an
attorney, they cannot defend themselves.
I am an attorney, so I cannot defend myself.
That is no.
Okay, so that is not how that works.
Conflict of interest, as Dustin said, that is not before us
, and so we're not going to discuss conflict of interest.
To imply that the city official is able to influence.
Again, nothing presented was anything about influencing.
This is a city attorney.
Federal judge.
The city attorney is not going to influence a federal judge
.
They are appointed.
They do not have constituents.
They do not care what the general population think, want,
or anything.
They're appointed for life.
So no, they're not influencing the case because they're an
attorney representing themselves and them representing
their clients as their charter dictates them to do.
So no.
Yeah, no.
I am.
Diane.
First, thank you for your statement.
You have the right as an individual to give that statement.
Thank you.
I was not here last time.
So I took this at face value, and I'm going to agree with
you.
I thought the whole premise was that we were coming here to
decide that the city attorney had a conflict of interest
over, you know, agreeing to be his own attorney and so on
and so forth.
And my only question was, was that fair?
Was that right?
Was that legal?
You know, did he do anything wrong?
Ken, you cleared that up for me a little bit.
And I think we can't go through everything here.
The complaint says, let me finish.
The complaint says what the complaint says.
And we should not be looking at anything else.
Right.
And so we're questioning if there was, you know, a conflict
of interest based on max--
It was proper influence.
It wasn't.
Proper influence.
And that's the only thing that you're stating, have stated,
that's what we're here for.
Right.
So I'm concerned that we're going a little bit south.
Going off the--
On message on this conversation.
I agree.
I think we both--the panel already determined that that was
not--that it wasn't an ethics violation on the city
attorneys.
Yeah.
So this hearing was--there was no determination made on
whether or not this was a frivolous complaint.
That's the purpose of this hearing.
And so just as a reminder, the frivolous complaint is
defined as a sworn complaint that is groundless and brought
in bad faith.
Or groundless and brought for the purpose of harassment.
And that's what we're trying to determine today.
So was it in bad faith?
Was it?
Or harassment?
I mean, I'm listening to the discussion today and I think
that--I think that Adam didn't make it in bad faith to--I
don't know, just fear the city attorney.
I think that Adam believed that this was a violation.
I disagree that this was a violation based on what we
discussed in that three-person preliminary panel.
After hearing the discussion and seeing all of the effort
that was put into the original complaint and this evidence,
I think that Adam really thinks this is an ethics violation
.
So to me that's not bad faith, it's just incorrect.
That's what I think.
My read of it and from the three-person panel that we did
was this is straightforward to me.
I look at this and I see this improper influence saying
that the city attorney can't represent themselves, they can
't represent the city in a case where they're also a
defendant.
I completely disagree with that for the reason that stated
in that preliminary panel.
And my thought was at that time, if it is this obvious to
me that this is not an ethics violation, that this should
be obvious to someone that is putting forth this much
effort to present a case that is an ethics violation.
I don't know that that's true.
I think that Adam thinks this was an ethics violation and I
disagree with that.
But I don't know that it was made in bad faith and I have
no idea if it's for the purpose of harassment.
I didn't hear anything today that sounded like Adam wants
to harass someone.
I think that there are just a lot of moving parts in
lawsuits and in interaction with the city attorney's office
, the attorney general, our daily bread staff, the police
department.
All of these things have been done.
I have no idea if it's good faith or not, but I think my
belief from going through 719 pages of a packet for this
hearing and then listening to the statements that Adam made
, I think that Adam really thinks this was an ethics
violation.
That's what this whole process is for, is we have this
ordinance, it's imperfect, like all of this stuff that we
have and we spend so much time trying to clean it up and
fill in little holes here and there.
But the point of it is that if a citizen believes that
there is an ethics violation, they should be able to make a
complaint.
And from the initial review of that, to me I thought well
maybe this was a frivolous complaint because this seems
obviously to not be an ethics violation and this person has
spent a lot of time putting together lawsuits, putting
together evidence, backing up, all those things.
And now it is apparent to me that Adam thinks this was an
ethics violation, made a complaint and the panel deemed it
to not be an ethics violation.
That's kind of where I'm at right now.
Dustin, I do know what you just said. I listened to all of
you and not being here at the time, it's given me a clearer
vision of what's going on. I don't think Adam set out in
bad faith.
I think, like you said, he believes in what he believes in
and he's making the statement to that. I think we think he
might be wrong, but he believes it to be true.
So I did hear your comments and I appreciate your comments
very much.
So I will disagree with that.
When we look at the factors that we are to look at in
determining frivolity.
What are we on here?
Would you like me to pull that up?
Yes, yes please. 282.
So we look at E and F.
Any evidence that the complainant knew or reasonably should
have known that the allegations in the complaint were
groundless.
Well, I'm looking at 718 pages of information. 718 pages.
That's a lot.
I've not written a lot of petitions and complaints that are
this long.
I get that these are several different ones, but it shows
that the complaint is not incompetent.
Not dumb by any means. And he does his research.
The problem is, I find it hard to believe that after all of
this and making it into the federal court system,
you don't run across the charter that says, hey, this is
the job of the city attorney.
That you make the allegations and you don't run across that
?
That's hard. And we're looking at this much information,
this much research, this much drafting.
That's a lot. And to not, and so that's why I'm like,
reasonably should have come across this.
Yeah. Should have. Definitely. And so that's where I'm, I
don't think it's bad faith.
I think it was intended to harass the city attorney.
I don't know if it was a money thing. I don't know what it
is, but there's no way you don't come across that
and then still file the complaint and say, well, let's just
do this and see what happens.
I don't know if it's a, let me see if I can't get the city
attorney to have an ethics violation,
then I can throw that into my federal court complaint. Woo
hoo! More exhibits.
I don't know what it is, but it's certainly not incompet
ence and it's certainly not an innocent mistake
whenever I'm looking at that and the pleadings are good. I
've seen a lot of bad pleadings.
These are decent pleadings. And so I just don't get how you
don't come across that city charter.
Dustin, you found that. You found the charter. Yeah. That's
, so I found, I went and searched for it
in reviewing the original complaint and to me it was
obvious. That's my interpretation of what should rule here.
Like the city charter says this. Adam today said, the city
charter said that, but it doesn't matter.
That still is an ethics violation. We disagree on that. So
to me, my biggest question was, if I review this,
if I get the original complaint and read through it and
then I say, alright, well let me do a little research
in our ordinance, let me look at the city charter for the
city attorney's responsibilities,
and then I get to that and I come to the conclusion I get
to, I don't think that, I'm guessing that Adam may have
come, looked at the same thing, looked at the city charter
and just disagreed with it. Because today Adam is disagree
ing
still that this is an ethics violation, right. So I, my
thought originally was, they had to get to this point,
right.
If you're putting together that much information to support
your claim, then probably you've done enough research.
I'm 100% with you there. That's what I thought before. I
think the difference today to me is that it's not lack of
effort,
it's not ignoring that, it's just a misinterpretation of
that. That's what I think is going on.
There's, you know, in those items you point out, any
evidence the complainant knew or reasonably should have
known that the allegations were groundless.
I think that's where we're at. The complainant should have
known, does not know today that they are groundless because
that complaint is incorrect.
And then there's an and there for, between paragraph E and
F, any evidence of the complainant's motives in filing the
complaint.
And the motive that I'm hearing is that there is a belief
that there is an ethics violation.
I don't know what they expect to get out of this, right. I
know that in the original complaint it did ask for relief,
and the relief request it was, complainant requests that
the Board of Ethics find that respondent Mac Ryan, I don't
know,
Ryan one has violated sections 2-273(e)(3) and 2-273(e)(4)
of the city of Nantz code of ordinances and impose
appropriate sanctions pursuant to section 2-282(b),
including a letter of reprimand and recommendation of
suspension to the city council. That was the relief that
was requested.
That, I don't really know what that gets in terms of like
the whatever other legal proceedings are out there that
have been provided to us as evidence,
and I don't think it matters. We're not reviewing the
federal case here. I read through not every word of the
evidence packet for today,
but I went through every page to try and understand where
all was presented, and there's hundreds, literally hundreds
of pages of historical documents over the last couple of
years,
court cases, all these things that a complainant is dealing
with, with our daily bread, with the police department,
with all of these people that I cannot begin to understand,
but I don't think that there's anything that we can do with
this complaint that is going to be productive in any way to
help Adam's situation,
to help with any federal case, to help with the alleged
inadequacies of the conduct or security or all these things
in our daily bread that I don't know anything about other
than what I read in the complaint packet.
We are not going to do that. All I know is that I don't
believe that there was an ethics violation based on what
was originally given to us. That's what I said in the
preliminary thing, and that's what I think today.
Today we're supposed to say is this a frivolous complaint.
I think it is an incorrect complaint. I don't think it is
frivolous because I think that Adam really thinks this was
an ethics violation, and that's where I'm at.
I'll gaslight you on two things real quick. You talk about
a lot of history. There's a lot of history in there of past
, our daily bread, and I don't care. I don't.
That's not for us, but it is context surrounding it. If
anybody files 15 different complaints in 15 different
departments, are those departments allowed to look and say,
"Well, he's done this in all these other departments. What
's going on?"
We're not allowed to look at that as what's going on and
why are these continuously rolling in. That's the historic
part. Look at all of this. There's something there.
I don't know if it is somebody trying to be the hero. Cool.
I get it, but not the proper way to do it, I don't think.
Then your second point of we can't help you, right? We can
't. There's nothing we can do about our daily bread. There's
nothing we can do about the attorney general. None of that
is in our realm of stuff.
We simply address violations of the ethics ordinance and
then on the other end is to prevent the abuse of the ethics
ordinance complaint system.
To reiterate, we can't help with that second one because we
don't have any authority. We just declare frivolity and
that's it. I know we've talked about implementing fines and
suspensions, but it's not there.
We don't have anything we can do anyways even if we
declared it frivolous, if I'm not mistaken.
Through our history, and please don't take this wrong,
through our history we have had individuals throughout our
history that fought when everybody thought that we were nut
cases and didn't know what we were talking about and kept
fighting for the human rights of people.
Some of those branched out. I am a person that believes in
people being able to speak their mind and if they believe
to be true and they have backing of it, I think they should
be allowed to go forward.
I'm just going over that first part because it's
insignificant to me if they've done something 15 times or
25 times if they have the backing and they believe in it.
I think that you see it through a lawyer's eyes. I'm just
going to be layman here. I see it from a civil side.
Individual fighting for what he believes in. Not right. If
it was in a law court I would say I'm sorry, not guilty.
But that's not what I'm looking at right now.
I don't believe that he purposely set out to harm the city
of debt nor the city of camp. He doesn't like them. Let's
put it on the road. He doesn't like the policeman here.
He doesn't like the city attorney here. Let's put it where
it is. He's always fighting them, always battling them. It
's public knowledge. He's always in the city council with
them.
But he has a right. He has a right to do that. So we're not
debating that. We're debating if this was...he put this out
there to go out of his way.
700 pages. Surely Adam has something else in his life to do
than write 700 pages of this. He has to have some belief.
So I'm just going to put it that way. With due respect, I
respect you more than any one of the few people I know. But
I disagree with you on some things because this is not all
about being law, being a lawyer.
This is about being a civil person and about their rights.
Yeah. I'm glad. I am happy that people disagree on the
board. We should.
That's what's so good about this place is we all disagree.
So I wonder if there's any more discussion.
So when we decide, are we deciding if it's frivolous or bas
eless or just frivolous or not frivolous? I guess I'm not
sure.
I'm just wondering if there's a...I think there are two
motions. One, is it groundless, brought bad faith, or if it
's groundless and for the purpose of harassment. So I think
we need to make a finding on one of those.
It's hard to know because we're not in his head what his
intentions are. So if we err on the side of saying ground
less but not frivolous.
I'll add something to this. So there's a previous complaint
and a lot of the frivolous discussion is based on previous
complaints that were found to be frivolous and all this
stuff.
And a lot of it centers around election time. Political.
And there's political agenda. Like there's a previous
complaint that happened right before an election.
The complaint was advertised to the papers for the purpose
of advertising there is a complaint against this candidate.
And before the board even heard this. Before the board ever
, I think before the board even did the three person
preliminary panel.
The person that complained in that case, I believe they
missed a deadline for something or they did not, they said
at their hearing they did not watch the preliminary panel.
And they submitted the complaint right before the election
because they thought it was such a big deal that everyone
needed to know about it.
And those two things were total polar opposites. This is so
important I have to submit this complaint right before the
election and I have to tell the paper.
It's like five days before. Yeah. But I don't care enough
to even watch to see what the board says.
To me that is like. That's an example of frivolous. You are
intentionally like trying to make this person look bad and
you're taking extra steps.
You're violating what the ethics ordinance says if you were
subject to it and this person wasn't.
That is a frivolous complaint like exactly that. And I don
't think that that person even thought even believed their
case. They didn't even show up.
This is different to me. If this were put in the paper and
I suppose that it is possible that this could be used for
some other purpose but it has not been as far as I know.
Right. It hasn't been put in the paper. I don't know. I
didn't see anything about that in any of the complaint
packets being added to an existing lawsuit.
So that's what separates this from previous frivolous. Is
there anything else you need to say? Sorry to interrupt.
Oh, that's okay. I just think that even if there's a
pattern there wasn't anyone to defend to state that as
evidence. We don't know that. I mean I don't know that. I
don't know that pattern.
So let me clarify. The board has already decided that there
was no ethics complaint and I stand by that. Violation.
Yeah, no violation.
But the question is, was this frivolous? And I think that
should be the only thing that we make our decision on. So I
hear division. That's okay. This is still a democracy.
And that's a good thing. So I don't know if you're ready to
make a motion and then we vote for or against it.
So voting to say if it's frivolous or not frivolous. But
not frivolous means what? It has to be stated one way or
the other.
So you will either vote to dismiss the complaint because it
is baseless which was determined by the panel. Baseless.
Which was determined by the preliminary panel.
Or you could find that a violation has occurred because the
complainant submitted a frivolous complaint that requires a
super majority vote.
Those are kind of the two options at this point. I tend to
think it's baseless but not necessarily frivolous. Right.
So the motion in that case and what you're saying would be
you would move to dismiss the complaint because it is bas
eless.
That would be the motion. For example. And that would just
require a super majority. Correct. I'll make a motion that
we dismiss the complaint because it is baseless. Okay. Is
there a second to that?
I second the motion. Okay. So Dustin made the motion to
dismiss the complaint because it is frivolous. Baseless. I
'm sorry. And Pat seconded it.
Okay. I think it would be best if we did a vote. I think it
requires a vote by voice. Like individual. Okay. I think it
would just be best if we do it individually. Okay. So can
we start with Ken?
I will vote A. Okay. And I will vote A. I will vote A. And
yes. Yes. Voting.
You're voting. You're voting. If you say no, then you
believe that it was baseless. That's backwards. Is that
right? No. No. Can you restate the motion?
Yeah. Let's see if we can make sure that we're getting
confused. The motion on the floor is to dismiss the
complaint because it is baseless. Baseless being it's not a
violation of the ordinance, but not that the complaint was
frivolous.
So I will vote yes if I think it right. Okay. Correct. Make
sure you got the right vote.
The vote is one nay and four. No, you said nay also. I said
yes. She said yes. Oh, you said yes. Can we read? Yeah,
that's right. That's why I'm going to just say it the other
way.
To recap, the motion on the table was to dismiss the
complaint because it is baseless, meaning that board has
determined it is not frivolous in this instance. And the
motion was passed for one with one absence. And then I
think we have the record. Is that all? That good? That's
the summary.
So because there's no violation, there's no need to discuss
sanctions. Yep. So we just have the closing of the meeting.
So it is now 6 42 p.m. And this meeting is adjourned.
Before we adjourn, let me say please do not discuss this in
the parking lot. Don't discuss this in the room before you
leave. That will be the next part of the communication. I
know you know we're not going to do that. So just a
reminder. So we are now adjourned.