Board of Ethics Meeting - May 14, 2025

All right, you are recording, Mr. Chair. Thank you, ma'am. Well, current time being 3:36 PM on May 14th, 2025, now call this meeting of the Board of Ethics to order. Miss Lepe, would you please call roll?

Yes, Mr. Bell-Reeve? Present. Miss Mogadam? Present. Miss Guess?

And Miss West?

Present. Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you. Well, the first item we have today is the approval of today's agenda, located at, well, pages 1 and 2 of today's agenda. Uh, is there a motion?

Move to approve the agenda. And a second?

Second. And any discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor of approving today's agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And with none opposed, today's agenda is approved.

And so the next item we have on our agenda today is approving the minutes of our previous meeting located at page 3 of today's packet. And is there a motion?

Move to approve.

And a second? Second. And any discussion?

Hearing none, the motion is to approve the minutes of our previous meeting. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

And with none opposed, the minutes of our prior meeting are approved. At 5 on our agenda today, we have our consent agenda. We have forms for the board's review at 5A.1, disclosures of economic interest in a municipal contract or business by a public servant, and that's sub-items A through D. If the board would like to consider these as a block, we would entertain a motion.

I move to approve as a block A.1, A through D.

And a second.

Second.

And is there any discussion here today?

And I suppose as I reviewed these, I noticed that for each of these, I think that the disclosers have accurately identified that they don't believe that they have anyone with a personal or financial interest in, in these subjects. So I'm happy to see that these each appear to be appropriately filled out.

And the motion is to approve the items at 5A1 A through D. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And with none opposed, these disclosures of an economic interest are approved.

Next item we have is a notice of intent to respond to public solicitation by a public servant, and the board would entertain a motion.

So, I have a question about this though. So, I mean, it's May 14th and we're seeing this, but if you look, both the deadlines to submit the applications were, I think, March and April. Um, is this something that's already— I mean, I would assume they already applied.

And my sense is this, this is likely a Paul question here where I'm seeing this is, you know, notice, not something that necessarily is calling for action from us. Is that an inaccurate understanding, Paul? Yeah, so May talked to me about this, and, uh, so I guess she brought it up and I just told her to fill out the disclosure, uh, even though it was after the fact. But I signed it off on it on the ethics office as the ethics officer before. Um, so I don't remember how it came up or what context, but, uh, somebody was talking to her about, um, just making sure that a disclosure was filed because, uh, even though she had no authority over the mayor's community grants or whatever, it's still, you know, technically she should have filled out a disclosure.

So, but I mean, that's the key factor is that she's in her office in her role in the Ombudsman's Office, she doesn't have any say over which groups get those community grants for the art projects. Okay. Yeah, I didn't have any issue with the actual disclosure, but I, I just was wondering, um, and I think this was one of the issues that we discussed before where people need something more timely than our, you know, monthly meetings. And so we had said that You could take the lead on just approving those. So, all right, um, I guess I will move to approve the Notice of Intent to Respond to Public Solicitation by a Public Servant in Section 5(a)(2).

And a second. Second. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the item at 5A2, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And with none opposed, the motion carries.

The next item we have on our agenda today is at item 6, unfinished business, a discussion regarding ethics complaint for violation 2025 TAC 02. And in this instance, I believe we would move to— I'm sorry, I'm trying to look over to see. Okay, yes, move over to our closed session.

I will motion to move into executive session.

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

Aye. And the motion carries. We'll proceed in closed session. I'll see you all on the other Teams call.

Hi, Gretchen. They moved to executive session if you want to start over. I will do that. Sorry, I just—. No worries—.

Got pulled into something. All right, thank you. Yeah, you're good. You're welcome.

Chair, I believe, yes, you have everyone here. You're back in open session.

Excellent. Well, I seem to have broken my camera, but hopefully my audio still works.

Both are working. Yes, wonderful. Well, with everyone back from our closed session here, I believe the board would entertain a motion to withdraw our opinion for ethics complaint for violation 2025-TAC-02 and issue a new declination under AS— sorry, under 115.160(a)(2)(a)(b)?

So moved. And do we have a second? I will second that. And is there any further discussion?

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

And any opposed?

Hearing none, the motion carries. The next item we have on our agenda today is at 7, new business. Proposed changes to conflict of interest, and I may just need to defer to Paul here.

Yeah, thank you. So I can just kind of explain where this came from, and it's really a notification issue for the board. So I gave some ethics training, I think it was a week ago or 2 weeks ago, to the assembly. It was pretty, pretty good training. You know, we went over a lot of topics, but when we got to the conflict of interest section, Assembly Chair Constant Drew the rest of the assembly's attention to this case from the Alaska Supreme Court that just came out, I think, a couple days before our ethics training.

It was just recently within the last week or so, and particularly on page 18 of the packet. So it's page 13 of the decision, but it's marked in our packet on page 18. There's a paragraph near the top of the page, and I'll just read it verbatim, the part that he wrote— he read during the assembly. Session last week, that we have concluded that a substantial financial interest exists where a government official has a narrow and specific interest in the immediate subject of an official action. And he asked the Assembly's attention to that line, basically saying like, that's the best definition of a conflict of interest section that I've ever seen, and recommending that our code be changed to adopt that language.

From that the Alaska court system is using to define a conflict of interest. And really kind of the criticism that I got for how it's written now, it's just that it's kind of difficult to— for people to apply. So they're not sure what a substantial interest is, what a minor inconsequential interest is. It uses, you know, prohibited versus permissive and, you know, balancing the size and connection. And there's just a perception maybe that the that it really wasn't that clear and that it could be better defined by revising the code.

So Chair Constantine did say like that's something that they want to push and pursue here in the immediate future. So I want to draw the board's attention to that. I know last time Terry Kelly was very heavily involved and, you know, the board was kind of included on any proposed changes to the code of ethics. So I can reach out to Assembly Council and see, you know, what their plan is or how soon that's going to be adapted. And then if any of the board members want to be— participate in that and kind of review it before it gets approved.

Or I don't know, like sometimes they just make the change without any input too. But that's basically all this item is about, is just that there's right now, at least in the assembly, a recognized need to make this section in the ethics code more clear.

So there's really no— I mean, there's no ask or anything. I just wanted to make the board aware of that, and I guess know that it's potentially coming up here. So they're just going to add the quoted language of a narrow and specific interest in the immediate subject? Yeah, I think that's how they're going to define the conflict. Like, a conflict of interest is— they're going to probably get rid of all that prohibited versus permissive language.

And then use this as a definition for what a conflict of interest is.

But there, I mean, there could be other changes too, like, you know, as we, if maybe if we're in the involved in the editing process at all, I know there was a lot of discussion and back and forth the last time it was updated, and I'm not sure it was that it's proven to be as that the changes have proven to be as beneficial as maybe we thought they were going to be at the time, that no matter how you say it, people are still confused. So Yeah, I mean, what's narrow? Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I would love to be included on any correspondence or anything going forward with that. If you're given kind of a heads up about a conversation or a meeting that's going to happen, I would be interested in dialing in or attending and at least just listening in since it does affect this board.

Kelly, that almost sounds like working for free. And I was going to mention too, that's the last time, like, if there's any other changes that, like, that we want to make to the code, you know, maybe we could do it all at once. So yeah, that's why I would like to be informed about it going forward. I don't always follow the assembly meetings super closely, and so, um, having kind of a heads up of what's going to be discussed and if this is on the agenda, that would be helpful to me because I'm not always checking the, the assembly, um, no, via like the agendas and everything of what, what's going to be discussed. But I do think that You know, based on discussions and stuff, things might come up based on the things that have been brought before us that we could have some good input to help if they're— especially if they're changing language.

And I can also send my hourly rate as well. Now we're talking.

Well, do we have any further discussion on the proposed changes to the conflict of interest?

Oh, thanks for letting us know. Yeah, and Paul, is that— I guess I don't see that there would be any problem with having just kind of like a group email with everyone on this board where you could just email everyone what's, you know, what's going on, and whoever wants to participate can participate. I don't—. That's all good as long as we don't respond, right? Yeah, exactly.

Or talk about any substantive things.

Well, the next item we— sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna— no, you're fine. I was just gonna say I think that would be helpful, and then especially It, you know, including everybody on here on the board, you know, it gives everybody the same opportunity.

Well, the next item we have on today's agenda is our member comments, and have we any?

None for me. None for me. None for me. And no comment from me as well. And moving right on down the list, we have audience participation.

Sure, if you don't mind, I had seen earlier there was someone who called in. I don't see them now, but if you don't mind me putting on the record, if they want to speak and they're muted, they can dial *6 to unmute. Excellent. Thank you.

I'm just looking here at the participants here just for another second. I haven't seen anyone new pop up.

And moving right along then, next item we have for today, especially as we're welcoming a new member to the board, it's going to be setting our next meeting. I think that over the last few meetings we've been a little bit more sporadic as far as scheduling instead of having a consistent you know, on the X Thursday of each month or what have you, and would certainly open the floor up to a little bit broader discussion about, you know, what works best for everyone's schedules to see if we can have a consistent meeting schedule as we're looking forward here.

I do tend to have meetings every other Thursday at 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM, so I can make this timeframe going forward, but just bringing that up as a future concern just in case.

Yeah, and I was just going to say that afternoons before 5:00 are typically good for me. Summers get a little crazy. We used to meet at like 7:00 at night and summers get a little crazy with baseball and soccer and all this stuff. So later times do actually work for me as well.

Yeah, I can, as long as it's consistent, I can normally work my schedule, will work my schedule around it.

And if we're inside of business hours, I'm sort of in the same vote as Gretchen here with, you know, being able to work the schedule around it. Evenings are— well, I'd imagine probably a similar problem that Kelly has is, well, it's summertime and evenings get hectic for the kids, right?

Unless it's you doing the sports, in which case more power to you and I commend you. Nope, nope. All the 8-year-old.

Fun.

So with that in mind, as we're looking forward here, and I suppose hearing that, um, that Haley has every other Thursday, as you said, that you have another conflicting meeting. Yes, it does usually end before the 3 PM timeframe though, but there are occasions where it has run over that time.

Well, how does everybody feel about June 12th?

So, June 12th, I'm not used to having to look more than a week ahead on my calendar. This always hurts my brain. Yeah, June 12th, I will be available, but, um, I think we can still get a quorum without one of us, so Yeah, I'm flying that day. Um, I think I'm gonna— though I'm looking at my calendar, I think I arrive on time because it's that direct from Minneapolis, so I should be okay unless something happens. Would June 26th work better?

That would work for me.

I currently don't have anything on my schedule for that day. It looks like I am clean for that day as well. Yep, I can make that— I can make that happen.

And so I suppose the board would entertain a motion to set our next meeting for 26th June at 3:30 PM.

So moved. So moved. I think one of those was a second. Second. Any further discussion?

Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And with none opposed, the motion carries.

Our next meeting is set for 26 June at 3:30 PM. And with nothing further on the agenda, I believe we are ready to adjourn today.

Move to adjourn. I will second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

And with that, we are adjourned. Thank you all. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everyone.