Board of Ethics Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Chair, Ms. West had gone into the closed session, so she'll be joining us shortly. There she is. Okay, excellent.

And also, Mr. Ervasti will be here. He'll just be a little bit late. Perfect. We are recording, so whenever you're ready. All right, well, we'll go ahead and call this meeting of the Board of Ethics to order at 3:31 PM here on November 20th, 2025.

And Ms. Sleppy, would you please call roll? Yes, Mr. Bellary? Present. Ms. Mogadam? Present.

Ms. Guess?

Present.

Miss West. Present. Mr. Drama. Present.

Sure, you have a quorum. Thank you, candidate. Seems like my computer is struggling right now. I'll turn off my camera and see if hopefully that saves something. Um, first item we have on today's agenda is of course the approval of the agenda, and the board would entertain a motion.

So moved. And a second. I'll second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. And seeing, well, none opposed, motion carries. So the next item we have today then is approval of the minutes of our previous meeting.

And absent any notes or changes there, the board would of course entertain a motion.

Move to approve the minutes from our last meeting. And a second. Second.

And all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And any opposed? Seeing and hearing none, motion carries, and we have approved the minutes of our previous meeting. Thus, the next item we have on our agenda is our consent agenda, starting first with item 5A1, disclosure of economic interest in a municipal contract or business by a public servant.

I did not see any readily that I thought needed to be pulled out separately, but if no one else believes that any need separate consideration, believe the board would entertain a motion to approve the items at 5A1A through E.

So moved. And a second. Second. And any discussion?

Seeing and hearing none, the motion is to approve the items at 5A.1A through E. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. And any opposed? Seeing and hearing none, 5A1A through E are approved. The next item we have is also on the consent agenda, that is notice of intent to respond to public solicitation. Here again, I believe all of these had indicated that they had neither nor on the ability to affect these, and I believe absent any concerns from the members, the board would entertain a motion to approve all of the items at 5A2A through F.

So moved. And a second. Second. Second. Any discussion?

Seeing and hearing none, the motion is to approve the items at 5A2A through F. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And any opposed?

Seeing and hearing none, the motion carries. Next item we have on our agenda this afternoon is at 6A, request for an advisory opinion, 2025 TAC 06 HESS. I believe the board would entertain a motion to go into closed session here.

So moved. And a second? Second. Any discussion?

Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of going into closed session, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

And any opposed? Seeing and hearing none, I'll see you all on the other side.

Here we are back in open session.

Or perhaps the board might better entertain a motion to, to return to the open session here if I had unmuted my microphone.

And sorry, have we a motion?

Mr. Chair, could you help us with what the proper motion would be? Oh, of course. Sorry, I think that this would be just a motion to first return to open session, and then we would subsequently have a motion adopting the draft advisory opinion as revised. I will move to go back into open session.

And a second? Second. And all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And any opposed?

Seeing and hearing none, the motion carries. And as we were, the board would entertain a motion to adopt the draft advisory opinion as revised. So moved. And a second. Second.

Any discussion?

Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And any opposed?

Seeing and hearing none, the motion carries, and we will have that Well, I guess track changes adopted and signed and distributed. Next time we have on this evening's agenda is under new business items for improvements to ethics code. Well, I was going to say without Paul here, I don't know that we want to dive into it, but Paul's here. Hey, Paul.

Yeah, sorry to everybody. I had an animal control hearing that went a little later, so I was trying to wrap everybody up here. But are we— we're not in the confidential session or anything that I'm excused from? No, and I think— I don't know if you caught it, but you came in right as I was saying we probably don't want to deal with this next item without Paul. Which item?

That is 7A, items for improvement to ethics code. Oh, okay, sure. Yeah, I was just going to give an update to everybody on that. So unfortunately I haven't gotten like the draft AO or anything done yet, but we were just talking and it's not like an urgent thing. Urgent project.

It's just, you know, longer term. Are there improvements that we could make to the Code of Ethics? And I think, you know, a couple of areas that we've identified: the conflict of intersection could probably be a little bit more concise. The role of the ethics officer should be spelled out so that there's no misunderstanding or room for abuse. And then Eve and I have been talking about it as well, like the definition of partisan activity in the workplace.

It should probably be cleaned up a little bit too. Because it's both— it's not really what people understand partisan activity to be, that definition. You know, we don't want to ban people from wearing a pink ribbon, you know, because their relative died of breast cancer or something. That's not really what it's getting at. It's just divisive, you know, partisan issues that people are— should not be advocating for wearing, you know, t-shirts and buttons and stuff in the workplace.

So that one could probably be cleaned up too. But if there's other areas where the board members think that, you know, the code is ambiguous or it needs improvement, we could probably talk about that at the next meeting, like once I have a chance to draft up some of those concrete changes. But that kind of— like we discussed briefly at the last meeting too, this kind of resulted from our annual report last year where we mentioned that to the assembly that there's a couple areas where we think maybe there could be some improvements or some changes made. So of course they were very receptive to that, saying that, you know, if we have changes, just get them down and submit them to the Assembly and they'll push them through.

But I don't think there's really much else to discuss at this point until I can get the time to actually get that AO drafted up. I appreciate the update. Any comments from other members on item 7A at the time, or at this time? Yeah, I do. Thank you, Paul.

And, and I just wanted to ask if it's possible when working on this code, is there any consideration for some type of training That's going to be included.

Yeah, I think that's, that's a great question. So I just did training yesterday to the board, all the board and commission members at the planning department. So like the zoning board, the, you know, all these other boards, there was quite a few people that showed up. But one of the projects that we've identified as well is like making a video for new board and commission members that then, you know, if a training isn't scheduled or if somebody new gets appointed, that there would just be a video that they could watch and get trained on the code of ethics. So that's something that they'd like me to work on and get finalized, you know, before probably the end of the year.

What I could do then is maybe— because that's something that I would like the board to review or to have you guys kind of bless off on it, that it's the, you know, that it's, it is consistent with what you want board and commission members to learn about, or how the code of ethics is being interpreted. So maybe that could be something for the next meeting as well, where you put that on the agenda item to, you know, review, or we can send that out in advance of the meeting where you'd review that and suggest any changes that you want to the training video. Okay. Thanks.

So, Paul, I wonder if other cities, or if there would be a place where we could— I don't know, we do mineral now, and when I was in healthcare, we would do rapid regs, but there's something to be said by people doing annual training and taking a little quiz just to remind them of what the rules are.

And I'm sure hopefully another city has, has done that. I don't want to put a huge cost on, but I just, as someone who's been in those environments, it's just right, a good reminder every year with like, you know, a 4 or 5 question, uh, 4 or 5 question quiz. Is just a good— it's just an ongoing good training, right? Because there's so many people coming in and out of the city.

So just an idea, and I'll keep a look at it. It might be that Nils knows something at AML or has some contacts at the Municipal League.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea where we could have a training course, annual training course that people have to do. Yeah. Okay.

Any other remarks from members?

None from me.

All right. Well, thank you, Paula. Always appreciate your insight here and look and Well, yeah, appreciate your keeping an eye on this issue too for us.

So the next item we have on this evening's agenda is election of Vice Chair. I'm glad to see we have a full complement of members on the Board of Ethics now, and as much as I enjoy chairing, I am looking forward to being out of the country on military orders here in the near future, and otherwise early next year being out for a couple of months on orders. I think it might be a little difficult to attend to a meeting for those 2 months, so it may be timely. Believe the board would entertain nominations for a vice chair, and of course, do feel free to nominate yourself if so inclined. Hmm.

This is Gretchen. I was going to nominate Kelly if she has the time to do it.

I appreciate that. I served as chair prior to you, and I'm trying to remember if I was vice chair before that. I think I was. I think you were. I think I was.

It was a while ago. I'm trying to think. I've got some big cases coming up, and so I probably— I just don't want to commit right now. I can look at some calendaring stuff that I've got and see what I've got coming up and give everyone an update at the next meeting. Meeting if that's helpful, if nobody else is interested at this point.

Well, my inclination was going to be to nominate Gretchen with the same sort of caveat of my suspicion is that that might be a rejected nomination. Uh, yeah, I mean, I can try, but it's, um, I could try. To do it. I might need some time with you before going into it, but, um, of the rules of the road. But I can always backfill as well.

Okay, Omar or Hailey, are you guys interested? Well, thank you very much for the opportunity, but, um, I've been on the board for what, 2 months now. And, um, old hat. So I'll let you guys, you know, you've been here before me. I mean, to lead.

And so, yeah, so, well, thanks for the opportunity, but I just want to have the other guys who've been here before me to, to, to, to take that opportunity and lead.

I would be open to assisting if that was needed, but for my schedule with work, I'm going to have quite a big workload as well coming up, especially with time. So I don't think I'd be able to spend as much time on this as would be possibly be needed.

Sounds like maybe this might be a good topic to table until the next meeting.

It may be. I'm— and there again, my only consternation is I fully well expect that it will be the February and March meetings that I would be unavailable for. So to the extent, you know, if it were Gretchen or someone else, and, you know, we did want some handoff with silly things like Robert's Rules. I'd want to be able to afford that opportunity, right? Yeah, I don't mind doing it.

I can.

I'll do it. I'll do it for the next year and then someone else can take it on from there.

And I'll hand it back to you when you get back from your service.

I'm a big fan of a friendly mutiny in any case, but neither here nor there.

With that being said, I guess, are we a— are we a vote then for, I guess, electing Gretchen Guess? As our vice chair then?

I believe that's what we— the next step. Yeah, I'm unfortunately I'm at my work office and not the home office, so I've got Mason's on the shelf, not Roberts.

All right, well, the board would entertain a motion to elect Gretchen Guess as our vice chair.

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

Aye. And any opposed? Seeing and hearing none, the motion carries. Congratulations.

And next item we have on our agenda this evening is, of course, member comments, and I'll open up the floor that way.

Seeing and hearing none, our next item then is audience participation, audience of which I do not see any.

And so, of course, the next item we have on today's agenda is determining the date of our next meeting. And I will let Ms. Sleppy take it away on that one.

It looks like in keeping with tradition, the third Thursday is December 18th. I don't know if that works for everyone.

It works for me. Works for me. That works for me as well. Okay, we'll do December 18th from 3:30 to 5:00. Excellent.

And of course, the last item on every agenda, the board would entertain a motion to adjourn.

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

Aye. Aye. And with none opposed, the motion carries. Thank you all. We are adjourned at 3:56 PM.