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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 2021-11-15 1 Ethics Review Board Meeting Minutes November 15, 2021 4:00 p.m. Meeting Via Zoom Ethics Review Board members in attendance: Mayor Jeni Arndt, Councilmembers Julie Pignataro, Councilmember Susan Gutowsky. Staff in attendance: Carrie Daggett, City Attorney; Jeanne Sanford, Paralegal; Other Attendees: Nina Bodenheimer, Travis Storin, Kevin Jones, Chamber Fort Collins. A meeting of the City Council Ethics Review Board (“Board”) was held on Monday, November 15, 2021, at 4:00 p.m. via Zoom Meeting. The meeting started at 4:08 pm. The Board reviewed the Agenda which contained the following items: 1. Call to Order 2. Roll Call 3. Selection of a Presiding Officer 4. Review and Approval of the February 12, 2021, Minutes of the Ethics Review Board 5. Consideration of conflicts of interest related to employment relationships 6. Consideration of any additional policy ideas or concerns the Board would like to address in upcoming meetings 7. Consideration of meeting frequency and schedule 8. Other Business 9. Adjournment Paralegal Jeanne Sanford took roll call for the Board. Mayor Arndt: here. Councilmember Pignataro: here. Councilmember Gutowsky: here. City Attorney Daggett advised the board a chair was to be nominated. Councilmember Pignataro made a motion to nominate Councilmember Gutowsky as Chair and Mayor Arndt seconded the motion. Paralegal Jeanne Sanford took a roll call vote: Mayor Arndt: Yes. Councilmember Pignataro: Yes. Councilmember Gutowsky: Yes. The motion was approved by unanimous vote. Item 4 of the agenda was discussed, the review and approval of the February 12, 2021 Minutes. Councilmember Pignataro made a motion to approve the February 12, 2021 Minutes. Mayor Arndt seconded the motion. The Minutes were approved by unanimous vote. Item 5 was discussed, the consideration of conflicts of interest related to employment agreements and the Board asked City Attorney Daggett to provide some background information on this item. 2 Ms. Daggett explained the information provided to the Board, was information intended to give background on this topic. This topic came up under Other Business at a Council meeting several months ago. Ms. Daggett explained that in 2020, there were a number of complaints filed regarding councilmembers’ employment and matters of interest to Councilmembers’ employer and when does that create a conflict of interest. Ms. Daggett continued, under our code language, nothing specifically addresses an officer’s outside employment as viewed from a conflicts standard. The financial interest standard sets a clear line on outside employment, the decision of interest to employer, the foreseeable financial benefit to councilmember, and is not considered a conflict. However, the second prong is trickier – as it is applied to a “personal interest”. Ms. Daggett read the code in part, states the “judgment of a reasonably prudent person, direct and substantial benefit/detriment different in kind from the general public”. There might be a benefit in addressing the issue here. City Attorney Daggett explained that examples have been provided to the Board of other jurisdictions, other state and local laws defining the employer relationship. A few examples are fairly strict, very broad definition on employer having interest. One example Montpelier, VT, gives a specific provision on State employees which is typically the approach taken on city officials. Mayor Troxell is a good example regarding matters in the department he worked in, he would file a conflict of interest and stay out of. But for general CSU matters, he did not. Ms. Daggett stated it was her intent for the Board to review this information and see if a change is needed. If it is the Board’s desire to discuss this issue further, City Attorney Daggett will listen to this discussion and bring back options based on what she is hearing. Councilmember Gutowsky asked, should the Board decide to make changes, would it be a charter change, ballot issue be initiated? City Attorney Daggett explained to change a definition of an established definitive rule would need to be in the Charter, but the Board can give a general advisory opinion. This change could go to either the November or April election. Councilmember Pignataro gave Mayor Arndt some background on this issue explaining the majority of ethics complaints over the past two years were related to Hughes Stadium, CSU and former Mayor Troxell and former Councilmember Stephens’ employment status with CSU. Ms. Pignataro explained, given the size of our city and CSU being the largest employer, it became a weird disentanglement of real estate transactions leading to Wade Troxell and Kristin Stephens leading the councilmembers to decide if another councilmember broke a code of conduct. Ms. Pignataro explained if this Board change what we do when an ethics complaint is brought against another councilmember, this may help the perceived issue of impropriety. Mayor Arndt stated she watched the complaints fall away which spoke of the strong, clear policies and Code the City has on what to do in those instances. Mayor Arndt stated this is not a punitive committee; we are helping others with ethical questions. The recent situation with Councilmember Emily Francis and her employer, LaFamilia was discussed but in the end it was found that La Familia did not financially benefit in this instance. 3 Mayor Arndt stated Fort Collins is a small town and it would be absurd to eliminate employers in this town and if so, what would be next? Mayor Arndt stated that is why the City has an ethics committee, to bring questions to; the Board will tell you if there is a conflict and if so, you recuse from voting. Councilmember Gutowsky felt the wording for “personal interest” is vague and community members were voicing frustration on how specific our measures were. Ms. Gutowsky gave an example of the recent situation on legal aid immigrants/situation with La Familia being an endorser and Emily being an employee. Ms. Gutowsky felt that was really close because it was a small organization and would you be inclined to vote one way or another due to your Employer? Is there a way that Council can be more cognisant of the matter of impropriety and run it by the Ethics board like Emily did? We could diffuse a potential problem that way. City Attorney Daggett stated the Ethics Review Board did a formal review on the mobile home park rezoning and Emily’s involvement in her role with LaFamilia which led to an advisory opinion from the Board finding she did not have conflict, but to keep a watch on rezonings, if there was any directly involvement there. Education and awareness on part of Councilmembers on the benefit of using the advisory process was discussed. Ideas on how to promote the advisory process came forth such as sending messages to other councilmembers to remind them of this route. Mayor Arndt suggested taking this to the Safe Workplace training and/or other on-boarding activities and education. Councilmember Pignataro suggested something to keep in mind, that everyone has their tolerance of risk which may not be the same and we need to respect that as well. Because the code language is open, some may not feel the need to seek an advisory opinion. Ms. Pignataro suggested adding the advisory opinion step to the Respectful Work Place policy training. City Attorney Daggett circled back to the discussion in 2020 about this Ethics Review Board process, considering the complaints against councilmembers. Ms. Daggett stated that although there has not been a lot of momentum, there is still an interest in changing this process. There was a work session in December with a follow up memo summarizing the discussion. Ms. Daggett suggested sending that out to the Board with some follow up material. Ms. Daggett summarized some of the ideas generated: • The process in the Code (Ethics) could be modify and updated by Councilmembers without it going to the voters; • An alternative ERB process is triggered when so many councilmembers are involved that the Ethics Review Board cannot be formed. In that instance, there could be a random selection from Board and Commission members to act on the Ethics Review Board; • Perhaps this version would work on complaints on Councilmembers; 4 • An independent group such as representation from the legal community could serve in the process; • Adding non-councilmembers to the Ethics Review Board; or • Using outside counsel in the screening step. Councilmember Pignataro asked about hiring other municipalities to hear the complaints. Ms. Pignataro stated she like that approach as we did it for Boulder recently. Maybe too much pressure from Chairs from our board and commission members who may not want to vote against a councilmember. Using outside counsel would be the best approach. Mayor Arndt agreed. While unlikely, it would be good to have a process just in case; liked the idea of using outside counsel. City Attorney Daggett stated “frivolous” complaints can be pretty easy to dispose of, although it is time consuming and labor intensive. Within our process, the screening review is a way to see if anything we don’t know as a fact are they alleging anything of violation. At that first step, we could use an outside entity to determine the facts. Ms. Daggett stated, given the interest in looking at something like using an outside attorney, she would research some examples and provide information to the Board for further discussion for next steps. The Board discussed that the screening process has evolved into looking more of like a hearing. Mayor Arndt stated she is very supportive of getting policies and procedures in place before they are needed. Item 6 of the agenda was discussed and City Attorney Daggett stated perhaps a follow up meeting could be scheduled in January so as to give her time to pull together the information requested. Item 7 of the agenda was discussed about meeting frequency for this Board. Councilmember Pignataro suggested the board meet only when requested once this issue was sorted out. Councilmember Gutowsky and Mayor Arndt agreed. Best days and times were discussed for scheduling the follow up meeting. As there was no other business, the meeting adjourned at 5:05 pm.