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HomeMy Public PortalAbout20060925EABMinutes.pdfEthics Advisory Board September 25, 2006 Members Present: Randi Bryan, Linda Gladin, Lynn Hamilton, Roma Harper, Anne Miller, and Sue Off Ex-Officos Present: Janice Elliott, Bubba Hughes, and Paul Wolff Members Absent: Bobby Phillips Guests: Charlie Brewer and The Postals’ Linda Gladin called the meeting to order and called roll. Administration A motion was made by Randi Bryan to approve the minutes. Sue Off seconded the motion. The minutes were approved. Sue requested that Janice make the correction to the By-laws in Article 4 Section 2.1 to read “quasi-legislative authority.” Modified Meeting Schedule: Oct. 23rd Nov. 13 No Meeting in December Linda was invited to a Planning Commission meeting to make sure that the members were fam iliar with the Ethics Board and to make sure they knew that now is the time to provide input by way of Charlie Brewer or individually. Charlie will be taking Susan Hill’s place as a representative from the Planning Commission. He will become an official member after the Council approves his membership at the next meeting. At this point we have talked with the Department Heads, City Council and Planning Commission. An article about this project was in the Island’s news. The public should be very aware of what we are doing. Follow Up Paul is to follow up on the list of items that Linda emailed him. Paul asked that when drafts of documents approved by the EAB members were sent to him for Linda to also send the draft copies to Council for their review. At the last meeting we asked for a text amendment to extend our time until the end of May. Bubba stated there were two text amendments to the ordinance: the length of time and that the committee is quasi-legislative. This should be on the agenda for Thursday’s Council Meeting. Linda handed out a time line from Sept 25th to end of July 23rd that will help us stay on task. The hope is to have Articles I – III finished for Bubba’s review by January 22nd, Article IV finished for Bubba’s review by Feb. 26th and on May 14th have the Ordinance ready to send to Council for the first reading. Once the ordinance is written and approved, the next piece would be the handbook which will be completed 23 rd of July. Since this is a tough schedule, teams need to be established in order to work on off line. Team A responsible for Articles I – III, Team B responsible for Article IV, Team C responsible for the handbook, Team D responsible for editing. State Law Hand Out of the Summary of State Laws that really has a g reat deal of relationship with the Code of Ethics. There are 4 categories – Improper Influence on Legislation, Bribery, Extortion, and Coercion that should be in the front of the ordinance as a reminder. There is nothing we could write that would be as strong as State Law on these subjects. External Inducement We do not want to include non-public servants in the scope. We have enough to deal with “public servants.” Anatomy of Ordinance The ordinance should be written in chapters, articles, and then sections. “DE MINIMIS NON CURAT LEX” – the law does not concern itself with trifles – Re-visit this at another time. Everyone needs to think about this. Biggest problem is to where the line is going to be drawn – zero tolerance or degrees etc. We could use examples of minor violations for assistance in the handbook. Declaration of Policy Remove lines 23-25 of page 5 of the handout - reflects common sense and practicality; tolerates inadvertent minor or trivial violations that can be dealt with in a manner consistent with the maxim that “the law does not concern itself with trifles” Lines 10-14 of page 6 to remain in the policy (pages 5-8) Line 24 of page 7 “knowingly” was left in the policy Line 27 of page 7 delete - and other persons Lines 11-16 of page 7 – work on the impropriety part It was agreed to insert City Manager and City Attorney responsibilities section – see Ethics Advisory Board handout for September 25th. Guidelines Components Sue Off made a motion that we use the Cobb County Code of Ethics as our base guide. There was a second by Anne. Motion approved. We will discuss fitness to serve, cone of silence, exparte communications next month. Section missing from the Code of Ethics of Cobb County – Linda will get Roma a copy of the missing pages. Others can go to www.municode.com for Cobb County. Roma made a motion to adjourn the meeting. There was a second by Randi. Motion to adjourn was approved. Meeting adjourned.