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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009 03 10.minutes.Board of EthicsAPPROVED MINUTES LANSING CITY BOARD OF ETHICS REGULAR MEETING MARCH 10, 2009 - 5:30 P.M. NINTH FLOOR CITY CLERK’S CONFERENCE ROOM, LANSING CITY HALL The meeting was called to order at 5:30 P.M. in the Ninth Floor City Clerk’s Conference Room, City Hall, Lansing, Michigan. BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Rev. John Folkers Chairperson Ron Frybort, Vice-Chairperson Don Cote Susan Grettenberger, PhD Wes Thorp ABSENT: Rev. Charles Bicy A QUORUM WAS PRESENT OTHERS PRESENT: John M. Roberts Jr., Chief Deputy City Attorney Kevin Reeves, Chief Deputy City Clerk PUBLIC COMMENT: There was no public comment APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Moved by Mr. Cote to approve the agenda as submitted. MOTION CARRIED SECRETARY’S REPORT: Approval of Minutes: Moved by Mr. Cote to approve the minutes of December 9, 2008 as submitted. MOTION CARRIED Communications and Petitions sent and received since the last meeting: 1. Letter of Resignation from the Board of Ethics submitted by Paul Teszlewicz Moved by Ms. Grettenberger to accept the resignation of Paul Teszlewicz with regrets. MOTION CARRIED 2. Affidavit of Disclosure submitted by Luke Mardigian of the Lansing Police Department Moved by Mr. Cote to receive and place on file the Affidavit and send a letter stating no further action needed. MOTION CARRIED 3. Affidavit of Disclosure submitted by Barbara Hicks of the Principal Shopping District Moved by Mr. Thorpe to receive and place on file the Affidavit and send a letter stating no further action needed. MOTION CARRIED 4. Letters sent regarding follow-up to Affidavits of Disclosure submitted by City of Lansing Police Department Employees The Board had no objection to these letters. The Board seeks to review if the Affidavit of Disclosure can be made electronic and filled out on-line. UNFINISHED BUSINESS: 1. Affidavit of Disclosure filed by Anthony Beattie of the Lansing Police Department After and lengthy discussion of the attempts to receive information from Mr. Beattie, the Board and Mr. Roberts stated that there are at least three (3) options to address the lack of response from Mr. Beattie: 1) Invite Mr. Beattie to appear and answer all of the Board’s questions. 2) Notify the Chief of Police of the lack of response to the repeated requests for information. 3) Notify Mr. Beattie that the Board can take no action on his Affidavit of Disclosure due to his lack of response. Mr. Frybort suggested the following fourth option: 4) Notify the City Council of the lack of response to the repeated requests for information. Moved by Ms. Grettenberger to have Chief Deputy City Attorney Roberts send a third letter to Mr. Beattie requesting clarification of his disclosures and if no response is received, inform the Chief of Police and state that Mr. Beattie’s outside employment would not receive any action from the Board. MOTION CARRIED 2. Affidavit of Disclosure filed by Scott Ellis of the Lansing Police Department The Board discussed this matter and it was determined that the Board wanted to review all of Mr. Ellis’ previous responses to determine if it has enough information or has more questions. Moved by Mr. Frybort to have Mr. Roberts send the Board all of Mr. Ellis’ responses so that they may determine if has in fact answered all of their questions. Also, Mr. Roberts is to send a letter to Mr. Ellis’ acknowledging how long it is taking the Board to make its determination and inviting him to attend the Board’s next meeting. MOTION CARRIED 3. Revisions to the Statement of Financial Interest After a review of the changes to the Statement of Financial Interest, it was determined that under item #5, the line “For each business listed, please complete Attachment A” should be placed at the beginning of item #5. Moved by Mr. Thorpe to adopt the updated Statement of Financial Interest with the change to move the sentence “For each business listed, please complete Attachment A” under item #5 heading “Business Interest and Supplemental Employment” with a bold face type. MOTION CARRIED 4. Revisions to the Ethics Ordinance Mr. Roberts reported that the City Attorney requested that he present the Board with following questions from the 12/4/08 City Council Committee of the Whole meeting: (1) Bus Hypothetical. If a bus company were to donate buses for a delegation of City officials to another state, would this have to be reported under the revised ordinance? (2) LEPFA/Common Ground Hypothetical. LEPFA arranges for Common Ground tickets for Council Members and other City officials. Must these tickets be reported? If Council Members promote the event during Council Member Comments at meetings, does this constitute "reasonable consideration," such that the tickets would not need to be reported? (3) Duty to Report. Whose duty is it to report a gift to the City itself. For example, who has to report a donation from local labor to restore a Park facility like the scoreboard renovation at Ranney Park? What consequence if it is unreported? (4) Proposed Amendment. The Council would like to see the other standard terms in the ordinance added to the new section on reporting "gifts." These terms include "loan, payment, contribution, money," etc.). After a discussion of the four questions, the Board asked Mr. Roberts to prepare a response letter to the City Council consistent with the Board’s consensus on the answers to the questions. NEW BUSINESS: 2009 Meeting Schedule The Board adopted the following meeting schedule for 2009: February 10, 2009 March 10, 2009 April 14, 2009 May 12, 2009 June 9, 2009 July 14, 2009 August 11, 2009 September 8, 2009 October 13, 2009 November 10, 2009 December 8, 2009 BOARD ROUND TABLE ADJOURNED 6:50 P.M.