Board of Ethics Meeting - June 26, 2025

The current time is 3:52 PM on June 26th, and I'll call this meeting of the Board of Ethics to order.

And Miss Akers, as you would, would you please call roll? Chair Bellarive? Present.

Member Guess? Here. Member West? Here. And it's my understanding that Member Mogadam is excused.

That's correct. Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you. Next item we have on our agenda this afternoon is the approval of today's agenda, and the board would hear a motion to approve the agenda. That's correct.

Sorry.

So moved. And do we have a second? Second. And all those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

And with that, today's agenda is then approved. The next item we have on today's agenda is the adoption of the meetings of our previous— or the minutes of our previous meeting, and the board would entertain a motion to approve those minutes.

So moved. And a second? Second. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes of the previous meeting, please say aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. And the motion carries, and the minutes of our previous meeting are approved. Item number 5 on today's agenda is our consent agenda, where we have a number of disclosures of economic interest as item 5A.1, that is A through K. And before we consider if we want to take those as a block, does any member have disclosures that they'd like to have considered separately?

And I, I will say that I guess I did have questions about, I guess it would be 5(a)(1)(c) and (e) where I'm looking at the wrong agenda here.

Where it did seem, just based on the nature of the outside employment and the board that those people were sitting on, that there was potentially a conflict between those employments, but they had identified that there wasn't a potential conflict and You know, with all present, I might be inclined to at least request additional information about that to see what sort of insulation there is between their role on those boards and their role in employment. But if no other members had concerns in that vein, I'm happy to consider these as a block as well.

I'm having a little audio issue, so I can barely hear you, so I'm trying to fix it on my side. My apologies. You're quite all right. There's always the possibility it's my fault too. That tends to be the case pretty frequently.

I think that it is yours because I keep hearing you, um, it sounds like it's warbling almost. It's hard to understand. All right, well, hopefully— I don't know, let's see if I move my mic closer. It could just be an internet issue.

But all of that said, you know, my concerns really were just sort of looking at— it would have been C and E— that it appears there could be a potential conflict that maybe the submitter hadn't identified. But I think that that's unclear at best.

C and D, you had said? Uh, Charlie and Echo. Charlie and Echo, C and E.

Give me one moment.

And I could, I guess, speak to my concerns just to summarize them briefly, if that would be helpful. I'm having a hard time finding E on it, so I would agree with you on the first one, but yes, that would be wonderful. All right, so the first one, I guess, as I was looking at that, I'm seeing that this is for a board member appointment on the mayor's art advisory where this person, you know, is a contracted artist for an art camp and doesn't have any leadership in that respect. My concern becomes that the Arts Advisory Commission part of their role is to receive requests for funds from community art organizations and recommend the projects that should receive municipal funding. So, based on that, you know, description of what the commission does and what that person's role is, I think that this is a conflict that could be resolved by recusal, but the person should know or expect that that may be a possibility.

And similarly, looking to E here.

Mih'i was with the HHND Commission where our submitter is President and CEO of Shiloh Community Housing and HHND whose purpose in part is to review and make recommendations on proposed allocation of revenues targeted for housing and community development programs. And again, these roles seem like they would be at least related, if not completely aligned, and should be something that the submitter is aware of the potential for a conflict.

I would agree with you on both C and E. I think with C, I agree that they could just recuse themselves and identify the conflict of interest if there is anyone that arises, but I believe that E, with them being the president and CEO and they're in direct competition with others in that field, might be a little bit more of a conflict of interest.

And I think in similar situations if my memory serves, we may have seen it where it's not just in discussion on contracts involving their entity specifically, but sort of that broader workspace, if you will, or the broader context of those contracts so that, you know, you're not making decisions or recommendations about either your own company or your competitors.

I apologize, it's very hard to hear you again. Let me see if I can save myself by turning off my camera at least. Yeah.

I am eternally hopeful.

And so with all of that being said, I suppose that an appropriate motion that the board may consider here could be to approve the items on the consent agenda at 5A1, A through K, with the exception of C and E. E with a request or guidance to resubmit with additional information about the potential for conflicts and mitigating those conflicts.

I would agree. I would agree. All right, and should I interpret that as a motion and a second, or? Can I do a so moved? I think that's a so moved.

And a second? Second. And any further discussion?

Seeing and hearing none, the motion is to approve the consent agenda items at 5A.1a through K, with the exception of C and E, with the intent that those be refiled with additional information. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And hearing none opposed, the motion carries.

Next item on our agenda this evening is 5A2. That is a notice of intent to respond by public solicitation by a public servant. And unless there's discussion before that, I believe the board would entertain a motion.

What's the appropriate motion on this? So this one would— I actually don't know if this is a review or if this is an approve or simply a review and acknowledge. I miss Paul. Through the chair, is this the request for the advisory opinion? Is that— 7A.

This— sorry, we're on 5. Oh, gotcha. 5.1B or 5.2. So this is notice of intent. I, I think that this is acknowledged, correct?

I believe so. I'm not 100% though. I can find out. Give me just a second. Okay.

Well, I'd imagine we probably can't have a motion to do whatever it is we're supposed to do with this, so I'll hold tight.

Through the chair, it looks like— sorry, I'm looking at old minutes, and it looks like in the past it was just a motion to approve that item. Okay. Well, with that being said, I suppose then the board would entertain a motion to approve the item at 5A2, is it? Yes, 5A2. 5A2.

Motion to approve 5A2. Second. And any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of approving that item, please say aye. Aye.

Aye. And with that, the motion carries, and our Notice of Intent to Respond to Public Solicitation by Public Servant is approved. Next item on this evening's agenda is at 6, unfinished business, of which we have none. Ergo, our next item this evening is new business, request for advisory opinion 2025 TAC 03. And before we would consider a motion to, to go into a closed session, I do kind of want to get a sense of what the other members of the board here would want to do.

I guess administratively, as far as, you know, whether we want to have an opportunity to speak about this, I guess, in isolation before opening up the room and inviting the requester in, or out of respect for their time, pending their availability, if we would want to hear from them first and discuss afterwards.

I would lean towards having them speak first. Yes, I think that would be helpful. I would agree. All right. Well, with all of that, then I suppose the board would entertain the motion to go into a closed session here to discuss 2025 TAC 03 and have that discussion with the requester as well.

Motion to enter closed session. Second. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Aye. And the motion carries. I'll see you all on the other side. And if we can make sure that we have that confidential link sent over, then that would be greatly appreciated— to the requester, of course. Sorry.

Yeah, I can make sure it's forwarded. Excellent. Thank you so much.

All right, and I see that we have all of our members back here in our open session.

And do we need to call roll again, or can we continue? You can continue, but I would suggest extending the meeting. All right, well, with all of that, I believe that board would entertain a motion to extend the meeting, call it 10 minutes, to 5:05 PM.

So moved. And a second? Second. And all those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Aye. And thus our meeting is extended by 10 minutes. So the next item we have on our agenda this evening is our annual report of the board at 7 Charlie. I believe this one without Paul present to, um, to kind of speak to it in dialogue would be appropriate to table to our next meeting, um, unless anyone else has other thoughts on it.

And open up the floor if so. Agreed. So moved. And a second. Second.

And any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, the motion is to table item 7C to— yes, item 7C to our next regularly scheduled meeting. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

And with no opposition, the motion carries, and we'll table that to the next meeting. And I do apologize, I've taken that out of order because I've completely spaced on the fact that we hadn't voted on motions on 7A and 7B.

So rolling back up the agenda at 7A, I believe the board would entertain a motion to direct Paul to draft an advisory opinion consistent with our discussion in the closed session.

So moved. And a second? Second. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Aye.

And the motion carries to direct Paul to draft an advisory opinion for Request 2025-TAC-03. That's the next item on our agenda is 7B, and I believe this one the board would entertain a motion to decline this ethics complaint for a potential violation. That's 2025-TAC-04.

So moved. And a second. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of declining 2025-04, please say aye. Aye.

Aye. And with none opposed, the motion carries. And finally, the next item on our agenda is at 8, member comments. Have the members any comments this evening?

Seeing and hearing none, we'll move on to item 9, audience participation. And have we any members of the audience who would like to speak this evening?

Seeing and hearing none, next item on our agenda this evening is scheduling our next meeting. Um, I think that our proposed punt for today's meeting is likely unnecessary, and thus we're likely eyeballing— what would that be, the 3rd or 4th Thursday in July?

And is there any preference? Pardon? Third? Yes, the third Thursday on the 17th would work best for me.

That's—. That works for me.

And that works for me as well.

Looks like Crystal will be here, so I can let her know. Excellent. Thank you so much.

And finally, the last item we have on our agenda this evening is, of course, entertaining a motion to adjourn.

So moved. And a second? Second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. And the motion carries. Well, thank you all for the Herculean effort. I think that, you know, that was definitely an unusual advisory opinion, and so appreciate your thoughts and careful consideration there.

Well done, everyone. Have a wonderful summer. Thanks. Let's, let's try to enjoy what sunshine we have left this evening, right? Yeah.

All right. You all have a good one. Have a good day. Take care. Have a good day.

Bye.