Board of Ethics Meeting - October 16, 2025

Okay, you are being recorded. All right, appreciate it. Suppose it is 3:33 PM now on October 16th, 2025, and we will call this meeting of the Board of Ethics to order. Miss Slippy, or Sleppy, would you please call roll? Yes, Mr. Bell-Reeve.

Present. Miss Mogadam. Present. Miss Giss here. Mr.

Drama present. And Chair, I believe Miss West was excused. That's correct. All right, Chair, you have a quorum. All right, thank you.

The next item we have today is the approval of our agenda, and the board would entertain a motion.

So moved. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of approving today's agenda, please say aye.

Aye. Aye.

And with none opposed, the motion carries. Next item we have today is to approve the minutes of our prior meeting. That is the meeting of September 25th, 2025.

And of course, the board would entertain a motion.

Move to approve.

And a second.

Aye.

Any discussion today?

Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Next item we have on our agenda today is our consent agenda at 5, starting first with 5A1, disclosure of an economic interest in a municipal contract or business by a public servant. We have items A through D. And I'm taking a brief moment to review these again in case anyone else would like to do the same.

And as I'm reviewing these, I have no notes. Does anyone else have discussion for 5A.1(a) through (d)?

Nothing from me. I didn't see anything concerning.

Me either. Nothing for me. All right, in that case, uh, board would entertain a motion on 5A1A through D. Move to approve. And a second.

No further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye.

And with none opposed, the motion carries. Next item we have is at 5A2, Notice of Intent to Respond to Public Solicitation. Items A through D.

I had one question. Um, there was one, and I think it was Christopher Schutz, um, had a note on it, and I'm just wondering if that note was that he had a discussion. Paul, I know we had discussed because the timing on this was, I mean, I think it's already passed now of what he needed.

Oh, I can't remember if I talked to him individually or if it was just a question that came up. I know, uh, Carissa, do you remember? Like, I think there was just an issue with, like, I couldn't see what board he was on, and then we got the updated form, and then I just put that note in there just to make clear because it was a little bit like he's on the building board, he's reviewing a contract for, uh, or he's intending to bid on a contract that would involve some sort of building. So I just, I think I just put that on there just for clarification that, you know, the board that he's actually on has no impact on awarding these types of contracts. Okay, because I just saw that it had a submission deadline of October 14th, and that has passed.

So, oh, right. Yeah, uh, let's see, or is that the date he submitted? No, he got this back, like, on— so for the notices of solicitation, so I think, Krista, correct me if I'm wrong, but like after I sign them, they get posted, so they're free to bid on them. Okay, yeah, yeah. And then we just— so the board has visibility on these, like, so I'm just not signing off on stuff like you have full visibility.

We put them on the agenda so you can review them later. But I think that was a problem before we had municipal ethics officers that, you know, if the board wasn't meeting for a month or so, like, the deadline would already pass. And they wouldn't be able to bid on the contracts before they got them back. Yeah, we had had that conversation before and decided that you could— they could go through you if we weren't going to have a meeting in time. So I just wanted to make sure that that was what was done here because I noticed the deadline had already passed before this meeting.

So thanks for the clarification.

Other than that one, I personally did not have any issues.

All right, and I can't say that I had either. I think the board would entertain a motion.

Move to approve consent agenda 5A, 2A through D. And a second? Second.

And all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And hearing none opposed, the motion carries. Next item we have today is at 6A, Board of Ethics 24 annual report.

This seems like it might be something that Paul would be in a good position to speak to, if I'm not entirely confused, right? Yeah, absolutely. I'd just like to give the board an update on this. So what— and first of all, I wanted to thank Omar for coming to the Assembly Rules Committee when this was first presented. So that was very nice to have a board member show up and represent the board.

So it went to the Assembly Rules Committee. I think that was a couple weeks ago or a month ago already. But then last week it went to the Assembly as a whole during the regular Assembly meeting. And the thing that I wanted to update the board on is that page, the last page of the report where we'd made a couple of suggestions for areas where the code could maybe be improved or be clarified. So the Assembly was very receptive to that and just wanted to know like, You know, if we have suggestions or ways that we can improve it, you know, please get those to them and they'll certainly be happy to enact those changes.

So what I suggested is that, like, next month, maybe we could put that on the agenda. And then in the meantime, I could draft up, like, the specific language that we were talking about in the report and make a suggestion for, like, how we're going to try and clarify these provisions of the code. And then the board could discuss them, see if it's worth changing, if it's something we want to submit to the assembly, you know, for improvement or if there's, you know, if we need to edit the language or whatever. But they just wanted to know essentially, like, if we have suggestions to improve the Code of Ethics, let's get them the specific language and allow them to enact those changes.

Appreciate it, and I think that's helpful. And if it's the sense of the board, I would very much be on board for, you know, having that discussion in next month's meeting and give everyone a bit of an opportunity to sort of deliberate and really consider if there's anything else that might be helpful to clarify there as we're stepping into that next month.

Yeah, that would be great. That would be helpful too. Like, I mean, if there's any other things that we need to change, not necessarily even if they weren't in the annual report, but I know we had— I don't know if anybody was on the board when we had that issue with the sign in the City Hall office, but there was one of the board's opinions specifically noted, like, this provision is not clear, probably could be clarified. You know, maybe we should look at some of those changes too, like, just kind of an overall, you know, any things that we've found during the last couple years that needs clarification or a little bit of tweaking to make it work better.

I agree. I, I think that's a good path forward. If you could draft up something and let us take a look at it and, and then discuss it next, next month, that would be awesome.

And does this require any action, or can we just— I guess it would be move on to take up and move into an executive session on 6B. Yeah, I don't think 6A requires any action. So, um, if you're moving on to 6B, of course, then I'm going to recuse myself and log off from the meeting, uh, yeah, like I did last month. Happy to. Yeah, I see that we do have Mr. Busa here, so, okay, anything further for Anything further for Paul, anyone?

Not for me. Thanks, Paul. No, thanks, Paul. Okay, thanks, Paul. Yep, have a good afternoon, everyone.

Thanks. All right.

And with that, the next item we have on this afternoon's agenda.

Is at 6B, that is Request for Advisory Opinion 2025-TAC-06, and the Board would entertain a motion to go into an executive session here. So moved. I'll second. And all those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. All right, thank you everyone. I will see you in the other room.

Let's go to the other room.

We're back in open session, Chair. All right, welcome back, everyone.

Based on our Closed session there. I believe the board would entertain a motion for Mr. Bussa to draft an amended confidential or confidential draft advisory opinion related to Request for Opinion 2025-06. Does the board hear a motion? So moved. And a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

And with none opposed, the motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Bussa. And is there any new business for the board to consider this afternoon?

Seeing and hearing none, are there any comments of the members today?

Seeing and hearing none. Do we have any members or the public in the audience this afternoon? It does not appear so, looking in the participants.

And the next order of business that we have today is setting of our next meeting.

And are there preferences among any members of the board for the date of our next meeting?

Uh, for me personally, if we did the 3rd Thursday again, which would be, I believe, November 20th, that would work for me. And Thursday works for me as well. Works for me. Works for me.

All right, and with that, the last order of business we have today is adjournment. All those in— or wait, nope, the board would entertain a motion, of course. Come on. So moved. And a second?

Second. All those in favor of adjourning, please say aye. Aye. All right. Motion carries.

Thank you all for another wonderful and productive meeting, and I'll look forward to seeing you all on the third Thursday of next month.