 Council committee of the whole meeting to order Agenda's roll call I'm boron excuse bulk excuse Bowers excused Decker Yesha here Hannon here Hanna excused Heidemann excused Kittleson excused Montemayor here Ratke here Rinfleshe here Vanderwill here versey here and longman excused Exactly what we need nine By the skin of our teeth we can meet Next pledge of allegiance Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all Next we're looking for approval of the previous minutes the last committee of the whole meeting of the previous Motions are made is our second All in favor of that motion approving the minutes say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Opposed? Motion carries Okay, this is the first of hopefully Numerous committee of the whole meetings my goal as stated our opening Common Council meeting was to have these as informative, but also to be the body where Open discussion and debate can occur In a more relaxed atmosphere than perhaps Common Council The There are several items I think that will be coming up shortly But before we get to that I thought it was important as what as well as many other Council members that we had an introduction for not only the new all the persons Which will have more in depth tomorrow. I understand but also for the returning all the persons kind of a review of Some of the responsibilities and duties and ethics of our our position So with that we have Two people actually speaking today, correct. We don't have Dan today And that would be a city clerk Sue Richards and city attorney Steve McLean. Thank you both for speaking to us today And I guess Sue will start with you Thank you Well, it's gonna be relaxed. I'm gonna just kind of go through well Jim not that relaxed I'm just gonna go through some things That are more procedural things That I went through and I thought about the things that we run into that we seem to have Not issues, but just questions about on a pretty regular basis I gave you a packet with some of the things that we're gonna just touch on just stop me if you have a question I know that I sometimes come off as really pushing you and really making you hold the line But it's really important and I'm trying to keep everybody On track with what we need to do as a city. So forgive me if it sounds like I'm really a Taskmaster, but that's my job One of the first things this is one of the first things that is very important for this council is Dealing with all the agendas and minutes. You may think that you belong to one or two committees. That's all there is we have Probably over 55 58 committees now Even though they all don't meet every single week They do meet throughout the year and we get agendas and minutes flowing into the office Constantly as you can tell by your emails that I send you It's very important I'm the one that keeps track of all of the agendas and minutes It has to be one person so we can make sure that we are doing our legal responsibility of posting them Or you can't have your meeting if you don't have it posted properly It's important by our municipal code that we have all the minutes in a certain amount of time which we'll go through in a second What I would ask is that your agendas in your minutes should all be sent to me electronically What we do is we distribute them we don't write the agendas we don't write the minutes unless it's for the council That's the only minutes in the agenda that I write So you're gonna have parent Departments that work with you like public works for the public works department Etc that will work with you if you're a chairman of a different committee I take care of all the posting whether it be actual physical posting of the agendas and I also distribute them to the different groups all the media get them which is required We have a distribution list of the public a large Distribution list of the public and then we have an internal list and then we have the automatic list So you all get this On a like I said, I don't wait till the end of the week I do it as I get them in because sometimes people need to have that ahead of time to schedule So you will be getting them pretty regularly. I do split them up between minutes and agendas You'll notice you'll get to usually emails from me So that's what that is Another really important thing and I'm a real stickler on this is that we need to have the agendas to me at Least 24 hours before you're planning your meeting if it's not before 24 hours I've been known to stop meetings. I'll come up and say look you didn't Post it and with enough time and it's all to do with the public having the right to be there having the right to be noticed for your meeting so The one thing that I would ask is that you give me at least an hour maybe two before that 24 hour period Because if you send it to me a minute before the 24 hours, I might not be at my desk I'm not sitting there looking at the emails all day long just waiting for you to send me something even though that would be fun But I don't do that. So if you can send it an hour or two, that would be greatly appreciated As far as the minutes go this has been a real stickler And we do have a lot of people that call me and say the minutes aren't there yet And they may have waited a month or two months or three months and they want to know what happened We have it in our municipal code you have to and I'm saying you collectively Whoever is responsible for the minutes has to get them to me within 96 hours of that meeting That way I can get them posted on the website. I email them out to everybody the media, etc. I Realize that it's hard sometimes, but three months later is probably not a wise idea. It's going against our code You know, you have to do your very best to get it to me as soon as you possibly can and everybody's really picking up the pace I'm getting them within you know, 10 hours of the meeting. It's really getting better. So I must really be cracking the web The other thing that I've had to Put in place is a deadline for when the council documents come in I know that you probably think well, why does she have to have them in at this point? The meeting is not till next Monday Well, what you have to understand is there's a process that we have to take that I have to do with the agenda or with the documents rather Get them written get them processed, you know, it's a pretty laborious process Whether we're doing it on the paper version or even if you know when we go to the electronic version It's still going to be a laborious process as far as getting everything in So that's why there's a deadline midweek where I need to have the documents so that I can get them written Write an agenda and make sure you have them by the weekend So if you ever wonder why is she pulling them so fast now? There are always exceptions to the rule some committees meet after my deadline I'm not going to tell them. No, you can't get your documents in but they're kind enough to get them in immediately after the meeting And I can still get them on So stop me if you have any questions Your packs you all know they're already usually on Friday. We always are up here The only time that they wouldn't be ready on Friday There's occasions during the year that I'll be gone Either to conferences or whatever and I'm not back till late Friday. I start writing the documents on Saturday We run them and I usually have them done by Sunday So we would email you and say your packets will be ready Sunday after five and that doesn't happen very often But it does happen on occasion most the time you'll be able to pick up on Friday or over the weekend And you can get in with your key fob all weekend long after hours Okay The other thing that we sometimes get questioned on is when you get calls from your constituents and they are Telling you something's wrong. I need help with this or whatever it is I would ask that you you know when you're talking trying to solve the problem with them If it's something that you know that you just can't pass on It's a real easy situation that you could call Public works or whatever ask them to put it in writing so that they can submit it or you can submit it to me So we have a paper trail some kind of a trail that they've actually Registered a complaint with you so that we follow up on it Otherwise sometimes they get lost in the shuffle and I hate to see that happen It's easier if you as an alderman don't say it for them have them put it in writing or email or just email it to me That we find is really the best way to handle it And if you you know if you get to an email or any kind of letter over the weekend right before council meeting Just fire it over to me and I'll do it on Monday morning. That would be great I gave you some websites where you can I'm sure all of you have been on one of them is our city website The county's website is there Our municipal code which are all of our laws are on our city's website. You can link right to it On your desks, you may not all have them right now, but there is a Cheat sheet it's a laminated sheet that tells you how to do all the motions so that when you're standing up here And we're all looking at you and you say oh my gosh, how do I do this? I always have that sheet sheet in front of you So you will all have that the new alderman will have it so if you want to make a motion to pass a resolution the wording will be there Okay In the packet that I gave you these are just some things that are real helpful We've got the most current automatic list with all the emails addresses and phone numbers current as of I Think Dennis you were the last one to change something we've changed that so it's current as of right now And any time something changes if your phone number changes email changes, please let us know and then we'll resend these out to you Okay, I've given you a current list of the standing committees I've given you a current phone list of all the internal people in the city But you need to get a hold of Dave Bebel and how it works He's going to be on here So you don't have to not that I don't want to hear from you But you don't have to call me and say how do I get a hold of this and some of you like to call directly to the department So I've given you that There's a sheet in here on Just some helpful hints as far as Procedures starting the council meeting it starts at seven you need to be here early to sign documents Anytime after 6 30 would be great Don't show up five to seven if a document needs to be signed and and the mayor pounds the gavel and the documents not signed And on my desk it can't get acted on You know, it's not my rule. It's the way it is So that's why you're always here us saying if you've got documents out there. We need them And basically I've just given you a summary of The different things that we have the different documents. There's five different types of documents Those I'm not going to go through now I'm going to spend some time with our new older persons next week and we'll go through that So that you understand a little bit more about how the documents work I also have the full complete as of today the committee listing for you because that changes sometimes people are added people resign This is the most current It will be on the website and that will change as We get any changes The last thing that I would say is I think most of you you all should have this except for the new old person I think Scott has this There's a book that the League of Municipalities puts out that I purchase To have on hand. I think most of you have been issued one of these This is one of the most valuable resources for an official. It is it's called the handbook of For Wisconsin Municipal Municipal officials It is everything you ever wanted to know about being an older person Everything from annexations to financing to everything you want to know Uses as your resource you have all of your department heads and your departments uses resources is a fantastic resource And your new Alderman you'll be getting it next week when we meet so this is something and Really if you have any questions You know we learn as we are going on And I'm sure you know that as you go through meetings, especially the new older persons as you go through every meeting You learn more about how things work. So don't panic that you think oh my gosh. I don't know everything It takes people six months or more a year just to figure out what the process is So don't panic if you don't know it we understand and we're always here to help So that's it for me Thank you. So any questions All right, thank you Chairman rightfully Sue As far as your department goes and questions regarding old documents or research in your department Maybe you address how you'd like that handle Well, we are the keeper of the records for the city basically we have all all the council documents dating back to the 1800s We have all the minutes books So if there is something that it's an easy find something that's within the last six months or a year or two years And you need to find it You can give us a call and we will dig it out for you I can scan it and email it to you if it's a little bit more lengthy process I'd ask that you just give us some time You know, we don't have that many people there and we're you know We're usually pretty busy and we would just do some research and that will take just a little bit longer But we do have all the books there the minutes books and all the council documents Most of the contracts with the city Between our office and the attorney's office. We have I would hope all of the contracts with the city The city has so So we're kind of your resource place for that Citizen I do see the your request to speak right now Unfortunately on the agenda. I did not actually post public comments today I will add that Next time if perhaps you want to lean over to an alderman and maybe the alt person would be so kind too But unfortunately, I don't have that on the agenda to to a for public input apologies So the questions this time Just a final question suit that in if an alder person wishes to write a resolution And doesn't know how right that's a really good question We get a lot of calls for I need to write a resolution. I need to put an ordinance in how do I do that? Between our office and the city attorney's office. We can guide you We're not going to write you're going to have to write what you want, you know that the Part of that but I think that we can give you the procedure on how to do it Send you samples of ordinances and resolutions. You should always always have the city attorney check the ordinance and The resolution if possible to see if it's in proper Legalese I would hate to have a document come through and all of a sudden we've got to move it out because it's not proper Just check with the city attorney before it comes in would be a really good idea, but we can help with Yes, if I if I can just comment, please both Sue Richards and Steve McLean are invaluable resources that are available and if you ever have a doubt About writing in ordinance or about which I believe are going to be discussing ethics up here Do not be afraid to call them if you're ever in doubt You're better off Calling the resource and getting a straight answer than you are winging it. So I mean I've five You know in my four years around here. I guarantee you that Sue and Steve have probably seen me more than they want to But you know, they are they are a resource of the city and I would urge everybody to use them Any questions this time? All right, we'll move on to a city attorney's Steve McLean Thanks, Eric. I just want to on the discussion of the drafting ordinances I know the issues come up with the Alderman verse the already I Guess I do that based on my experience what generally if it's a rather complicated ordinance or somewhat major I guess my preferences rather than our office drafting something complete upfront Generally, I my advice is to Run something through a committee that deals with that issue and see what the sentiment of the committee is as to whether There's more than just one individual want to Pursue that legislation or would support it. I found There's a number of documents that spent a lot of time on on ordinances that really didn't go anywhere and I mean I Don't really mind doing that so much, but it's certainly a lot easier and more efficient for our office if if the subject is broached at the particular committee of jurisdiction over that subject and the committee says Yeah, I have the city attorney, you know work within draft something up and bring it in at least then I have some feeling that there's more than just one individual that Has an interest in this and it might have some legs so that Our office's time can be used most efficiently You know there there are times when if it's not a real sort of involved thing We don't have a problem drafting it up right from scratch, but the Some fairly complicated things that where there are a lot of issues or There are policy questions as to what's to be included and what's not I get some Guidance or feel from more than just one alderman say Before we draft it up and go to that time. It's helpful. I think and I I think it's probably more productive for the council too To clean if I may So in committee we appropriate then to say based on our discussions We make a motion to direct the city attorney to write a resolution with these points That's at least then we know that's been passed by the majority of the committee Yeah, or even wasting his time or even you know wouldn't even need to direct our office Just we got some indication that there's some sentiment for that subject matter because You know I'm spending a fair amount of time drafting that stuff and That's not going to go anywhere. It's really not productive. Thank you as Far as my understanding is we're meeting with soon I and I think all of them get your meeting with the three new alderman on Tuesday at noon That's what I what I intend to cover At that Meeting with the new alderman is a couple of things that I'm not going to talk about tonight What I view as really sort of an orientation of the big picture of what an alderman is What your authority is under the statutes as an alderman what the authority of the city council is What the talk about legislative procedure? how you You get Documents passed and whether you use an ordinance or resolution or sometimes you need a charter ordinance And what the difference is whether you need a majority vote or a supermajority a two-thirds vote Sort of quorum issues I'll be talking about a little bit about parliamentary procedure agendas The Charter law of municipalities how in the old days every city in the state or most of them had special charters that were just specifically for them and how The legislature did away with the special charters In the early 1900s and went to a general charter law and kind of cover what's in the general charter law home rule authority what authority City has to enact legislation how What sort of scopes of topics you can? Pass legislation on whether it conflicts with state law or doesn't conflict with state law and things like that Classes of cities were a second-class city and talk about what's the difference between a first-class city And I should say we're a class a city of the second class Yeah We'll be talking about One statute that the deals with general municipal law chapter 66 of the statutes kind of Brief overview as to what's in there types of things that the cities deal with And I'll also spend a little bit of time on Municipal and personal liability under Wisconsin law. I think it's important for Alderman to know If they're hanging out to dry personally on actions that they may take or not take as opposed to when the city is Obligated or may indemnify Individual Alderman for actions that they take or don't take and what scenarios that apply so That's what I'll cover with the new Alderman next week Tonight I thought really there's a in My experience sort of three big core subjects that Alderman deal with that are non substantive Matters as far as legislative type things, but they're three important areas for Alderman to be aware of One is the open meeting law One is the public records law and one is the ethics laws and our ethics code Interestingly enough, they're all addressed in chapter 19 of the state statutes. I Thought tonight if if if you're willing I'd talk about the open meeting law I could spend Hours on this and I'm sure you'd all like to stay here for hours and listen to this but I Think I talk about the open meeting law tonight and perhaps some future date will get an opportunity to talk about the public records laws Public records laws don't You know Alderman don't deal as directly with the public records laws as they do with the open meetings law Although I will say as a caveat if you get a home computer and you're doing work city work at home and You're getting emails and so forth those sorts of things become public records and you've got an obligation under the law to Retain those you can't just delete all these Emails and and various documents you get Question we have a question I Get emails apologize for interruption. Thank you chairperson run push, but get emails all the time from Constituents do we have to save all those too? I mean what's the you know? I don't like this. I don't like that this that I mean do we need to save all of those I? Would say yes. Yes. You should Alrighty should be saving that stuff. Okay, I have been but I didn't know what a presumption is anything's really a public record unless it's personal notes if If it's Generated sort of and covers the scope of your authority or scope of scope of your duties as an alderman And you need to preserve those things Generally general rules for six years There are certain things like You know get What I would say would be equivalent to a phone message or something like that on a pink slip where you know you got a call from somebody and I Would view the electronic version of that no different than the hard copy and that's that's not really a public record That's you get junk mail. That's you get spam. That's not public record, but communications Between you and constituents communication between you and city officials other alderman that you should really be keeping because The public can make requests for that information Some of that stuff may be Not accessible to the public for various various reasons may be confidential or May not be available But in general, I think it's a good idea to save that that material So getting if I can shift in gears to the open meeting law, so we have one more question Thank You Chairman Steve how about telephone calls when they call and ask me a question. I give them an answer Yeah, you got to save those No, the good thing about the telephone is it doesn't It's not it doesn't stay there forever. It's not a document No, you don't have to obviously telephone calls a telephone call A lot of times from a government employees or government official standpoint telephone is often a lot Easier and more convenient because of the fact that you don't get this paper trail And then you have to worry about whether you got to keep it or you don't have to keep it So the phone can be very helpful As opposed to doing a lot of business by email, although You know, I'm old-school enough where I Generally prefer the telephone versus a lot of emails and things like that. It's easier for me But I know the you know younger Alderman and stuff you Grew up on email and instant messaging and text messaging and all that stuff, but all that creates Records they're they're there even an electronic format and they're Potentially subject to the public records law I Guess the to interrupt again I think the public should be aware too that one there communicate with us especially by email They're creating a public record and that there should not be any expectation of anonymity or or privacy when communicating even through email For the public's sake as well You may get so I comment like this is just for your benefit. I want you to vote yes on this But don't tell anybody that I said that be aware. That's a that's the document that's been created if the email to you Especially and and a letter to Correct, right, okay Haven't seen a lot of requests, but we've had the mayor had an open records request from the boy and press for six months Worthy emails You know sent received whatever And we spent a long time going through them And Yeah, most of those were sent to sent to the mayor, but the He's got them. They're on his in his computer. They're they create a record there I Steve I I was I'm sorry. Okay. I I received a couple open records requests a year or so ago from from one of the labor unions and produced what they asked for and Can you charge people for producing this stuff and and what happens if you produce it and they never pick it up Oh, I guess let's forget open meetings. We'll talk about public records I was trying to do a segue First of all the concept with public records is Rather documents maintained by an authority and the statute defines authority to include individual Elected or appointed officials so records you maintain that are your Records are your public records if you get stuff from the council meetings to take them home their their records although Most of that stuff would be at the city clerk's office and the city clerk is really the primary Repository of the official public records you just got a copy But if if you have that in your possession and somebody makes a request for it They got a right to get a copy Can you charge for that? Yes the the standard is that you can charge your reasonable costs of Reproduction And We've applied in the city That at 25 cents a page generally I Guess what I would suggest and advise all the alderman if you Get any open records requests contact our office and we'll help you through it. I think that's the best way to go Some things you may have may not be a record Some things you maybe get you can get asked a lot of times you'll get requests from Individuals or citizens groups to answer a list of questions And they're citing the freedom of freedom of Information Act of the federal law or the state open Public records law You're not obligated to answer questions under the public records law if you've got a record You've got perhaps an obligation to provide make that available to the public, but you don't have to start You know doing a lot of research and answering questions and things like that. That's It's strictly a matter of if you got the record and it's Deemed to be public and there's no reason why it's confidential or excluded as an exception to the public records law You've got to make it available now You don't necessarily have to copy it and and a lot of times what I do I've had requests from other attorneys they make open records requests for a whole bunch of Files in our office. I have Oftentimes called up the attorney and said look You know, I'll dig out all the files that are relevant to your request I'll have them on my conference room table and you can come in anytime during the working hours and Look through them to your heart's content if you want to make copies of anything You're free to do that And we'll charge you for whatever you want copied that From my perspective is often very effective. It saves saves a lot of time and and needless Copy and stuff that nobody's really interested in in any way and and frankly it puts the burden on the requester to To really look through and see what what it is if anything they're interested in There are what else can I tell you about public records? You you have the right to if you do produce a copy Basically 25 cents is the it's the standard you generally don't have the right to Charge You know your time if you will spent in making the copies and things like that that's all sort of deemed to be within the 25 cents That we use this as a general rule Under the public records law If somebody makes a verbal request they Can't sue you if you don't respond in order for them to Pursue anything to sue you later on their request needs to be in writing and writing can also be email If somebody does make a written request to you or an email request for public records You got to respond to it you can't just blow them off and not respond The courts hold that if you don't respond basically you deny their request and I got to write if they wish to pursue it to go to court and And sue you under the public records law You can't then argue to the judge that well If I had responded I would have denied the request for this this and this reason It's too late at that point you have to if you're going to deny a Request you got to indicate what your basis is for that denial up front And there's a lot of case law on this where you know you say I'm not going to give it for this particular reason and The court deems that that's not a legitimate reason there might have been another legitimate reason But you didn't really deny it on that basis court's going to say you got to turn over the record There's a question again. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman How long from the time we get that open records request do we have to respond to it? Is there a statute? timeframe or just Properly within a reasonable period of time But but properly you can't just say well I'll get to it when I get to it and blow it off with for a month or so Generally the Attorney General's office takes a position that ten days is a reasonable period of time And again though if you do get a request contact the city attorney's office immediately I Am not aware that much that alderman get requests for open records or for public records. I've seen it but typically they're looking for copies of our files or copies of Records from the mayor or the city clerk or some city department finance department things like that that Regularly generate a lot of paperwork dealing with the city But and I advise all the departments to generally when they get requests unless it's pretty routine and unless they Are confident. They're just going to give it and they've got it available for them to contact our office as well it's There are You know a lot of issues with police chiefs here at the police department gets a lot of requests for Police reports internal police investigations Some sort of sensitive matters Sometimes and the news media is looking for them or somebody else for whatever reason and There may be Statutorily valid reasons not to provide those things Or there there's also Many times if the record Makes reference to and the subject of the record is a city employee The law requires that before you release the record you give the city employee notice And there's a statutory scheme for doing that you got to give them written notice and they've got ten days to To respond, you know, for instance, I get a request and there's something in there involves some city employee and I make the determination that It's subject to release Before I release that I've got to give the employee notice and an opportunity to go to court and Get a court order to stop that release if I don't do that. I could be liable to the employee for violating their privacy rights Another thought came to me and vanished immediately Public records again the there's a lot of statutory Exceptions things that aren't public Prepare that well for public records discussion tonight, but I did bring the statute along to take a quick look here Trade secrets. These are limitations upon access Law enforcement records certain law enforcement records are not subject to disclosure Contractors records some of those are and some of those aren't for instance, we get requests where DPW has whole contract file with the contractor that's doing a street street pavement work and You get requests from individuals or labor unions curious as to whether or not the contractors pay paying prevailing wages A lot of that information we might not even have in our files, but there's Statutes talk about since they're contracting with the city that the we've got to Get those from the contractor and make them available in our open records request with certain You know deletions for names and social security numbers and that sort of thing A lot of personal information health care records Social security numbers Often home telephone numbers and things like that can be redacted from records Before you release them But like the open meeting law the general presumption is it's subject to disclosure there's Wisconsin is very has very strong Laws on public records and public meetings that the general strong presumption of the state is that all these things are Public and open and available to the citizens to find out What's going on in the government and how things are are managed in the government and It's The the restrictions are always pretty narrowly construed and there's what's called a balancing test in the public records law If there's nothing that says it's Disclosable or not disclosable The custodian of the record and that's what you are if it's your record and they're making a request to you If it's your record, you're the custodian of the record You engage in what's called the balancing test And weigh the public's right to access to the record Versus the harm to the public in disclosing the record and This comes up More frequently than you would think I remember one sort of classic scenario it also involved the police department. There was a Number of years ago, there was a shooting Police officer shot an individual on the south side who had his wife, I believe hostage and was threatening to kill her with a knife and And That was the guy had been torturing his wife for number of hours and he had that all on video and The police had the video and the news media was interested in getting the video and It was it was a very gruesome CD and the issue was whether or not the The Benefit to the public in releasing that Was outweighed by the harm to the public and in and the harm to the privacy interest in disclosing that sort of thing Now another thing on public records is if you get a request and you're not the custodian of the record You don't have that record They're asking you for something you don't have you don't have to generate a record to respond to them and You don't have to say well I don't have that the you know this other alderman's got that You're only the custodian of what you've got If they're making the request of you Your obligation is with your documents not with anybody else's We're somewhat flexible Sort of on a case-by-case basis in the city where Somebody will make a request to the finance director and We know the finance director doesn't have the records, but the city clerk does Sometimes we'll you know contact the city clerk she'll make the records available and we'll respond to that But from a technical standpoint the finance director could just respond and say well You know, I'm not the custodian of that record. I don't have it period doesn't have to say that the You know Sue Richards happens to have that record you might want to contact her or I'll go talk to sue and get it from her So it's a very technical statute it's Again, it's part of the under the general theory in Wisconsin of open government. It's important to the public publics got a right to know these things got a right to Get copies of the stuff, but as I say it's not your job to Generate responses to just questions. That's not to say that you can't do that and very often That may be the most practical thing to do. I know the fire chief got a request Earlier this week From a group and they asked the series of questions and it was not yes or no, but it was they wanted numbers of this numbers of that and You know I advise the chief way you don't have to answer the questions like that. You can tell them You know, do you want a record? And I don't have a record that gives those numbers. I'd have to spend a bunch of time to compile that But as a practical matter if you want you could go ahead and do a little Digging in your files and respond to the questions. There's certain certainly nothing wrong with the answering those things, but That's not a requirement of the public records law Steve if I may I know we're off of your prepared topics right now The one topic I would like you to speak on if possible unless there's any questions before I move on to Is it seems every year that I've been on since 2003? the question of Ethics of you know, does that ethical behavior from all the person or not an ethical behavior from all the person? I don't know if you're able to if you prepare anything to discuss Yeah, you know the ethics of our position here. Sure Unless there's any other points someone also bring up first Okay The big picture is there's a state statute also as I said it's in chapter 19 that There is a code of ethics for local officials code of ethics for local government officials employees and candidates chapter 19 section 19.58 59 and in addition to that state law the state law says that In addition to this statute municipalities can adopt their own ordinances also dealing with the codes of ethics And so we have adopted an ethics code. It's been on the books for quite a while now that deals with the Ethics issues And you should bear in mind that when we're talking about ethics in government I guess you could make a lot of jokes about ethics in government But it's not really You know the the technical issue is not where whether you're a moral or an ethical person so much is but rather the gist of it is whether you have a financial interest or a personal interest in whatever it is that is the issue and Under our ethics code Our ethics code by the way is in chapter 2. It's 2-261 through 277 This this is for the new alderman. This is our code of Ordinances it's by chapter chapter 2 is the chapter on administration And I was kind of in our orientation session with the new alderman kind of thumb through the code book so that It used to be every alderman had one of these code books, but they've gotten very expensive to maintain and keep so now you you know You're told to go to the website and look at them and they are there, but it's just Maybe it's age again. I always find it's It's easier for me to look it up in a book than it is to look at it online and trying to search online is not Not to me as as easy as looking at an index or table of contents on a hardbound but For your benefit that I've got a hardbound copy that's kept up to date of the code of ordinances the city clerk does there's a copy in here if you're just Hanging around city hall with nothing to do and you want to thumb through the code book I Think for an alderman it's important to have some general idea at least what the laws of the city are and that's really what the the code of ordinances is it's the The law books for the for the city what our rules and regulations are and what's what's allowed and what's not I guess we have a question thank you alderman Ryan flesh in our code of ethics it talks about Impropriety or the appearance of impropriety and that always gets to be kind of gray as to we're supposed to according to our ethics code avoid all even appearance of impropriety and And I don't that's always gets to be kind of one person's opinion versus another person's opinion I wonder how you deal with that well, you know ethics codes are you know There's no real bright line tests on ethics codes a lot of it is Gray areas. There's no doubt about that Let me cover the definitions of financial interest and personal interest because they are defined in the Ordinance of financial interest any interest which shall yield directly or indirectly a Monetary or other material benefit to the officer or employee or to any other person employed or retaining the services of the officer or employee I Should point out by by saying officer or employee as alderman your officers of the city Our ethics code also covers city employees Personal interest is any interest arising from blood or marriage relationships or from close business or political affiliations Whether or not any financial interest is involved As I say our our local code adopts the state code as well Once again, there's a declaration of policy in our ethics code that basically promotes impartiality independence and responsibility to the people and that's that's The way you're supposed to conduct yourselves is In the best interest of the public and not your own personal best interest There do you have a question? You know regarding, you know the the ethics code in the gray area, you know one one One thing I've always used is that if you're stepping into what you feel is a gray area You probably don't belong there and then it normally works if you look at it as black and white If you're if you're going into a gray area and you think there may be the appearance of Impropriety if you don't go into that gray area, you never have to worry about it and that's that's one thing that I think that You know Will keep a lot of people, you know if you use your conscience and if your conscience tells you this is kind of a gray area Stay out of it, and you won't you won't run into any problems, you know with the appearance of impropriety, which is normally what? Things will lead to Thank you before I get into specifics as to what is in the code as to What's okay, and what's not? the overview is that Council in the ordinance has created an ethics board Which is comprised of all the alderman and the chairman of the committee the whole is the chair of the ethics board There is provision in here that When in doubt as to Your particular, you know particular action you may or may not be considering taking Or whether to do something is appropriate or not you can seek an advisory opinion from the ethics board One problem is that that's kind of generally pretty time-consuming and by the time you Convene the ethics board and and you're looking for some confidential opinion. You're not looking for Disclosing the issue publicly generally Time has passed for whatever Whatever the issue is somebody's offered you free tickets to the Bucks game or something like that and you need to know an answer You know before the game hopefully As to whether you can go or not So the the ordinance or there's a separate resolution that designates the law and licensing committee as A subcommittee of the ethics code and that's some help in that that's only a five-person committee and if Looking for some quicker advice that may be possible to go through the law and licensing committee Which Alderman Rindflay she also happens to chair this this council year The code doesn't specifically provide for it, but As mayor and Alderman Gisha have mentioned Contact our office if you got Some concerns about whether what you're doing is appropriate or not You know, it's one of those things like It's sort of a smell test thing as the mayor said sort of let your conscience be your guide. It's It's not quite that simple but if Something is nagging in your mind and you're just not sure it's better to ask beforehand because While not specifically in our code courts generally will view actions taken after requesting advice or getting an opinion as to whether it's Appropriate or not and as long as you follow that advice You're generally going to be in a lot better shape and viewed as Having done the right thing to get advice and and of course not going to slam you individually for for breaching the ethics code when When you did the best you could you got, you know sought advice and you followed the advice you you received I'm sorry Steve since we haven't done this one's at least in the law and licensing subcommittee before I guess the question would be to what degree is can this be done in closed session? What do we just be an open session? Much of it can be done in closed session and then that's provided for in the in the code a lot of these things are Basically, you're looking for a confidential opinion and you're entitled to confidential opinion to State to the world, you know what what your dilemma is Really is not the way people deal with ethics issues But the ordinance provides for and the state statute provides for meeting in closed session and Discussing ethics issues and things like that The ethics board the other function it has Besides just advisory opinions is in the event there is Someone brings a complaint against an alder person or an employee For violation of the ethics code. It's the ethics board that does the investigation and would hold a hearing say on on the Issue as to whether there's violation or not The penalties under our ordinance We don't provide for monetary penalties. The state statute says we can if we want to put in the ordinance Penal monetary penalties ours does not but the penalties in the ordinance that we've got are That a violation may constitute a cause for suspension removal from office or employment or other disciplinary action So it's a serious matter if it's an alder person who's Being an investigated the alderman stands down from the committee and doesn't participate obviously in the investigation But there are Due process rights If an investigation were to go forward the individual Charged if you will has has rights and Ability to seek counsel if it's pushed to that point and right to be You know Have a hearing if if there's going to be some sort of sanctions imposed by the ethics board another question Steve In terms of Votes on the council floor here if it is decided as a person that I Should remove myself from the voting abstain and vote I also need to abstain from the debate. Is that correct as well? Yes that's Basically if you need to abstain you abstain base from that whole issue You can't discuss the merits of the issue and then just say well, I'm like Abstaining from the vote you need also to abstain from the discussion. Okay. Thank you Abstention is Really a personal thing also Nobody can force you to abstain There's You've got a First Amendment right even though you're Government official you still got the right to free speech and if You know you may run into an ethics code violation if you do vote but Nobody else can tell you that you have to abstain. That's really your choice Can give you advice and suggest you might want to but Nobody can force you to As the specifics we've got a code provision that says no city official or employee shall request or permit the unauthorized Use of city-owned vehicles equipment materials or property for personal convenience or profit a lot of these things are sort of Obvious but they're in the code. No city official shall grant any special consideration Treatment or advantage to any citizens beyond that which is available to every other citizen So you can't pick and choose favorites You know obviously you got personal friends and so forth that's not an issue No, city official whether paid or unpaid shall engage in any business or transaction Or shall act in regard to financial or other personal interests direct or indirect Which is incompatible with the proper discharge of his official duties in the public interest Contrary to this article or which would tend to impair his independence of judgment or action in a performance of his official duties that's the Sort of the the appearance or you know would tend to impair the independence of judgment Sometimes it's not clear or it's clear probably in your mind that you know to accept a free dinner from somebody isn't going to influence you but If you look at it objectively and you really need to do that might this tend to influence You know my judgment when an issue and maybe there is an issue pending regarding that business or that individual or whatever and You know should I be accepting that we also have another section? I'll get to in a second dealing with meals and things like that. That's more specific No city official shall engage in or accept private employment or render service for private interests When such employment or service is incompatible with the proper discharge of his official duties or attend to impair his independence of judgment or action the performance of his official duties Unless otherwise permitted by law and a less disclosure is made as provided by this article Disclosure of confidential information this this comes up in a closed session scenario the council goes into closed session to discuss an item that's properly a subject for closed session and The next day you read about it in a shabuaga press Somebody talked to the news media The section says no city official or employees shall without proper legal authorization disclose confidential information concerning the property government or affairs of the city Nor shall he use his such information to advance the financial or other personal interest of himself or others So there's a couple keys there. No city official shall without proper legal authorization disclose confidential information. So Closed session material Remains closed now the law is generally It it remains closed until the the need for it to remain closed No longer exists The question is well, when is that and who makes that determination? Generally my advice is if if you have that question and you're considering releasing confidential information because you think it's no longer confidential contact our office and and Let's talk about it But there are there are certain things that you know two years later that It's really not confidential anymore. If you say something about it you're not breaching the ethics code even though it may have been confidential at one time but Certainly when in doubt don't just Make the leap that well, you know, this is general knowledge and therefore I'm going to disclose what the What I heard in a closed session of the council Here's the big one and this is the one that comes up most often it's entitled gifts and favors No city official or employee may solicit or accept any valuable gift favor or thing from any person who to his knowledge is Interested directly or indirectly in any manner whatsoever in business dealings with the city Nor shall any such official or employee accept any gift favor or thing of value That may tend to influence him in the discharge of his duties or grant in the discharge of his duties any improper favor service or thing of value Favor shall include but are not limited to admission tickets to sports or entertainment events restaurant meals transportation for personal purposes and Providing accommodations at a hotel or a resort Absent other unusual circumstances the following actions of officials or employees shall not be deemed to be violations of this article And here's the where we sort of set somewhat arbitrary guidelines receipt of a gift that is an unsolicited item of nominal intrinsic value you get some key chain or pencil or something like that from Yeah covers trinkets Receive of memento such as coffee cups paper weights Provided the value received does not exceed $20 and that distribution is of a general nature That was kind of the Mayor Schneider and Mayor Mayor SRAM exception The old days the mayor's office had a whole shells of coffee mugs in in the office and This covers things like coffee mugs provided the value does not exceed $20 and the distribution of us is of a general nature now exactly what that distribution is of a general nature is little unclear to me, but the Somebody offers you I've got one of my office. I use it every day. It's the cup. I use it says River's Edge on it It was this condominium project on Penn Avenue there went to their grand opening and they were at the grand opening. They were Providing coffee mugs and so it was for general distribution to anybody that was attending the grand opening I've got it. I've been drinking coffee out of it ever since Attendance or participation at modest ceremonial events I eat groundbreaking's grand openings receptions As well as business lunches outings and conferences provided the value received does not exceed $30 So business lunch is okay as long as it's not a frivolous or you know a big deal This $30 has been in here for 20 years and may need to be updated, but it's still $30 Attendance or participation at events or function sponsored by the city where there is no intent to influence the official or employee If you recall I think at the last council meeting you approved a city employee going to Colorado Springs as part of a Bike program Paid 100% by the organization putting on the event. It's tied into the the grant monies that the city got for Non-motorized transportation that sort of thing, but it includes room and board basically while they're out there Rather than just Them contact while they contacted the individual rather than the individual just saying oh, yeah, I'll just take that We brought in a resolution and had the council Sponsor that individual to go and really that that's what this deals with the tenants or participation events or functions sponsored by the city Where there's no one tent to influence the official or employee One situation that arose and I think former fire chief is probably still mad at me over this but The city was looking at purchasing a fire boat And the manufacturer was out in Las Vegas and the manufacturer or I think it was manufactured offered to pay full freight for room and board for a week for the chief and number of firefighters to go out there and demonstrate the boat I Told them is He can go out there, but Either he needs to get the council to to sponsor him and say that it's for City business, that's why you're going or they need to Pay pay the reasonable rate themselves and And go but but not accept the freebie from the contractor and That's what they ended up doing is they went Sure had a nice time in Las Vegas But it wasn't on the contractor's dime, and I think that's the best approach when When a contractor is looking to wine and diner fly it to somewhere to To view something We've had that seems like a lot of fire issue fire trucks and things like That You know some are like to Indianapolis or something and you think Jesus is that a gift or not, you know Or is that a liability but Anyway, we've got somewhat definable provisions in the code on gifts and favors, but If somebody that you know that is interested in doing business with the city is looking to give you something for quote-for-nothing Or do you some favor? personally Bells ought to be going off in your mind that Something doesn't smell right here and either decline or Seek seek some advice as to whether it's okay or not I don't know how many times I've got calls from employees Generally department heads were vendors Offer them tickets to sporting events bucks games brewers games and You know the the vendor saying well, they just you know, they do that. That's just general business. Well Yeah, but you're you're dealing with that vendor and they're trying to influence you to to buy their product and If you want to accept the ticket Pay them the full value of what it's worth and and you don't have an ethics issue Or decline to go but a lot of times I find I'm sort of the bad guy. I get to say no and people don't generally like that but It's really you look at it as a smell test that Are they doing this because they're your personal buddies? And you're going golfing with your personal buddies or or is it You know something that they wouldn't it have invited you but for the fact that you're an alderman and They've got some potential interest coming up before the council or not necessarily with you, but with the city and It could tend to influence you in your judgment on that particular issue Steve I'm going to interrupt here for a second. I think the crowd's getting a little restless I know we could talk for several more hours I've been sufficiently terrified from doing my job. I think I lost you and we haven't gotten to open meetings yet I Think with your permission would like to re-invite you back to cover some of these issues that you may come up with The three that you may feel like you are important to bring up to the rest of the committee But I think in short and summary Get his phone number on your phone and call whenever there's any questions it won't end out The longer I'm doing this I think the more you've heard from me and realized that He's a resource to protect us and protect the city as well. That's that's why I'm here I'm not here to be a hard guy, you know, I Provide advice to the council. That's my statutory authority and legal authority and Try to do it to the myself and my sister to the best of our ability. You may not always agree with this and As an attorney, you know, we provide advice. We don't tell you what you that what you have to do and if you choose not to follow it that's up to you but You know somewhat your dilemmas if you don't follow our advice and it's wrong. You could be left hanging out to dry Your attorneys aren't cheap, right? I don't know Price is right For in-house attorney here, yeah, yeah, yeah So I think I'll open up to any additional questions from the committee this time If there are specific questions like said, please call Steve directly if you think it's something enough that we should all Here let me know and we can bring that back at a later date to this committee so that the entire council Can can hear or the committee the whole excuse me can can hear. Thank you Steve. Appreciate that. Thank you, Sue information The last item on the agenda is the separate date and time as you may know We've had some difficulty in settings of meeting on a day that we already had so you had three meetings now Some had to on this evening The date has come up most often people requested is the Wednesday of council week The problem with that is Getting noticed anything that gets referred from the Monday come and council meeting to get to on Wednesday would have to be posted right away on Tuesday Okay Okay, does that Wednesday work for at least for those council members that are here the week of council meeting Okay, we'll look at scheduling that day instead then for items that get referred to committee the whole Just as a resource as I was looking at this today the The Party really that enforces public records law open meeting law is the Attorney General's office Generally the statute says the district attorney or the Attorney General, but the Attorney General deals with those issues a lot They've got very good information on state the Department of Justice website If you look at that website, there's a section lower left hand corner and title public records and open meetings And I looked at that the other day. There's a click that and there's a They've got a compliance guide that they update every year on the open meeting law on the public records law that's Got a lot of a lot of information it's About 30 page each of them about 30 pages long. I also noticed there's they've got a Video that was of a presentation that Attorney General's office presented I think sometime last year to the general public That's an hour and a half on The open meeting law You know if you got a free hour and a half and you're looking to you can't fall asleep It's it's available on the web I started looking at it and I fell asleep No And there they've also got a PowerPoint on the website there on public records law, so It's a lot of good information there, too Thank you to the McLean, thank you to the cleric signatures Motion to adjourn Motion made is our second second all favor say aye. General it's aye. We send adjourned