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1 AGENDA 2 CHARTER REVIEW COMMITTEE 3 March 1, 2017 4 5 After determining that a quorum was present, the City of Denton Charter Review Committee of 6 the City of Denton, Texas convened in a meeting on Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. in 7 the City Council Work Session Room, 215 E. McKinney Street, Denton, Texas at which time the 8 following items were considered: 9 10 Present: Dr. Jim Alexander, Dr. Bob Bland, Erin Clegg, Kyle Eaton, Sheryl English, 11 Monica Glenn, Herbert Holl, Colette Johnson, Ron Johnson, Dr. Patrice Lyke, Joe 12 Mulroy, Dr. Annetta Ramsay, Marty Rivers, Prudence Sanchez, Steve Sullivan, 13 Jorge Urbina, Michael Upshaw, David Zoltner. 14 15 Absent: Billy Cheek, Phil Gallivan, Stu Moorhead 16 17 Staff: Vernell Dooley, Jr., Robin Fox, John Knight, Bryan Langley, Aaron Leal, Kelly 18 Campbell 19 20 21 Mulroy called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. 22 23 Mulroy – We are going to be recorded tonight, so of all times please don’t cross talk because they 24 are not going to be able to capture. When we get into the presentation in the Q and A, be patient, 25 we will have time for everyone to have questions and get an answer. 26 27 Regular Meeting 28 29 1. Public Comment. (5 Minutes) 30 31 Mulroy – Is there anyone from the public here and wishes to speak? 32 33 No one requested to speak. 34 35 2. Housekeeping. 36 37 A. Consider approval of the February 15, 2017 Charter Review Committee Meeting Minutes. 38 39 English motioned, and Sullivan seconded to approve the minutes. Motion passed. 40 41 3. Receive an ethics presentation from Alan Bojorquez (Texas Center for Municipal Ethics), hold 42 a discussion and provide direction to City Staff. (3 Hours) 43 44 Alexander – I was a little skeptical that we would be able to pull this off to have an expert in to be 45 with us tonight. Joe was insistent that we would be able to do it. With a lot of help from staff, 46 we’ve been able to do this as a committee. We met within about five days or so after the last 1 1 meeting. We reviewed materials submitted by applicants for the position. We reached a 2 unanimous agreement that we had an excellent choice in the gentleman who will be speaking in a 3 moment. He represents some significant experience in the field of municipal law, especially as it 4 relates to ethics. I particularly like the fact that his academic background is not only a law degree 5 but also included with that law degree, a master’s degree in public administration from Texas Tech. 6 It is with great pleasure I present to you, Mr. Alan Bojorquez. 7 8 Mulroy - Special thanks to Jim Alexander, Billy Cheek and David Zoltner for getting this put 9 together so quickly. 10 11 Alexander – Thanks, also, to the staff who helped make this happen. It worked out well. 12 13 Bojorquez – Thank you. I am Alan Bojorquez and I have some prepared materials that we’ll go 14 through and then we’ll open it up to a question and answer period. The prepared materials are 15 designed to provide you with the basic overview of state ethics laws. I’ve gathered those that the 16 State of Texas has compiled that are most commonly brought up in the municipal context and will 17 run through those to try to give you a working understanding of those laws but also to try and 18 dispel some of the misrepresentations or misunderstandings about what they may or may not do. 19 And then we’ll transition into the topic of ethics, ethic ordinances, your Charter and what this 20 committee would like to recommend to the Council in terms of what to do with the Charter. You 21 have your handouts to take notes and we also have basic slides to provide us with some structure 22 and some organization. But certainly if you’ve got a question regarding a slide feel free to stop 23 me and we can discuss it for a bit. 24 25 We start with the Charge, what the City Council actually instructed this Charter Review Committee 26 to do. You were not charged specifically by the City Council to write an ethics ordinance or to 27 write an ethics provision for the Charter, but to evaluate what you think needs to be done with the 28 ethics provisions in your Charter. I know that Charge has led to a lot of possibilities and we’ll 29 actually discuss what some of those possibilities are toward the end. But looking at what the 30 Council has asked us to do, we’ll begin from there. 31 32 Looking at the Charter, the first provision is 14.05, a basic Nepotism provision. Looks very similar 33 to the 572 provision in State Law in terms of a prohibition on the hiring of relatives within certain 34 degrees, by blood, by marriage or by adoption. One aspect that the Charter provision in Denton 35 provides is that it actually applies it to department heads as well as to the City Council. Under 36 State Law, the City’s home rule charter delegates hiring/firing authority to the City Manager, then 37 the State Law Nepotism rule does not apply. Your Charter goes a little bit beyond State Law in 38 that regard and applies it to department heads regarding employees they hire for that department. 39 Much like State Law, it also has an exemption for pre-existing personnel, those employees that 40 were there before someone got elected to Council or before that department head was named. 41 42 The second provision in your Charter that you’re going to have to evaluate is one entitled Personal 43 Interest. It may otherwise be named a Conflict of Interest, which is the title that we give to State 44 Law. It applies to a member of a board and commission which is clearly going through the City 45 Council, it is one that includes P&Z and other such boards and commissions. It defines a substantial 46 interest in the way it is defined in State Statute. That definition is tied to money. Do you get 2 1 income? Do you own stock? Do you own real estate? Then it goes on to say you must comply 2 with 171. What does that mean? You must abstain from voting under your Charter and file an 3 affidavit. An affidavit is a public declaration of this interest. A document that’s filed with the 4 City Secretary’s office and thus is available for anybody who requests it under the Open Records 5 Act. An interesting twist, yours actually says “voting.” If you read state statute, we’ll get to it 6 later on, it talks about participation. Participation is broader than voting. It includes discussion, 7 deliberations and so if you were to enforce that, because of reference to 171, I’d take the broader 8 interpretation of 171, but that’s just a couple of nuance points about your Charter. So those are 9 some things you’ve been asked to look at. Are they enough? Are they too much? Do we need 10 them? Do we need something else? That’s the point of today’s meeting. Let’s have a look at 11 State Law. 12 13 The notion as reflected in the Constitution of the State that says that by accepting a second position, 14 you automatically forfeit your first position. Now what does that mean? It looks only at public 15 offices of emolument. What does that mean? In a public office, you have to exercise a sovereign 16 function of government. You’re not just stamping, filing, processing. You’re exercising some 17 discretion in your position. The second part is you get paid. If you’re not getting paid, this rule 18 does not apply. There are lots of exceptions like so many provisions in our State Constitution, 19 there’s the rule and then there’s page after page after page of the exceptions to the exceptions of 20 the rule. 21 22 Next is Incompatibility. This one is not actually statutory, it’s common law. So this is something 23 where a judge will decide on a case by case basis. It depends on facts; there are many, many 24 attorney general opinions on this. Incompatibility is essentially saying that you can’t be your own 25 boss. So if you were to have the City Manager over the City of Denton, which you don’t have, but 26 if you were, you couldn’t place a City Council member to be City Manager, they couldn’t both be 27 City Manager and be on the City Council because they’d be their own boss. That’s incompatibility. 28 The more complicated versions of incompatibility is that no one can serve two masters at the same 29 time. Can you be superintendent of Denton ISD and be on the City Council? No. Not because 30 City Council and School Board Trustees are always fighting, sometimes they do. Sometimes they 31 get along really well. They are always contracting with each other, co-sponsoring programs. We’ll 32 own the swimming pool, but you operate the swimming pool. They are very, very intertwined at 33 times. So you couldn’t be a superintendent at the school and be on the City Council.

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