Okay, everyone, why don't we call this work session to order?

Um today is Friday, May 8th.

Uh we are noticed from we're starting a little bit late, but starting a notice from 1040 to 1140 a.m.

And then we have a couple other work sessions for training and orientation purposes.

We are recording.

Um so we will go through and uh do member introductions and then we'll turn it over to our folks to uh present.

So for starting with member scout.

Sydney Scout.

Anna Brawley.

And then I know we have uh another member joining us soon, and then on the phone we have Mr.

Handeland.

Okay, sounds good.

I heard you there.

Um so just a reminder, and I am sending a note as well.

Um, if you want to get in the queue and you're in the room, just kind of flag me down.

Um, or you can text me uh on my Muni phone.

So Donald, I just made sure you have that information.

And uh we are sorry, we're also joined by uh clerk staff, uh assembly council, uh Muni attorney in the back, and then our ethics officer who will be presenting shortly.

So with that, um I am gonna turn it over to Mr.

Urbasti.

I'll note there is a presentation um and some paperwork being passed out, and I will turn it over to you and please start by uh noting your name on the record.

Okay.

Well, thank you for allowing me to put uh participate here today.

My name is Paul Irvesti, I'm the municipal one of the municipal ethics officers.

Um please.

Um so my full-time job is I'm the administrative hearing officer for the municipality.

Um so what that means is that uh our office handles any appeal of a civil citation that somebody would have, if they get a fine for something on the or the city is trying to take action of them and they want to contest that and have a hearing, uh then the administrative hearing office handles those appeals and has hearings in those cases.

Um the code also allows the administrative, so the legal counsel for the board of ethics is the municipal attorney or the administrative hearing officer when available.

Um so obviously our office, like if there's not hearing schedule, we don't like solicit business or anything like that.

If people aren't appealing their citations, you know, that's a good thing if they're just paying the fine.

So if there's not hearing scheduled or there's no no business um just to stay busy, the administrative hearing office can support the board of ethics uh and serve as legal counsel for the board of ethics.

So that's kind of the and the code allows that.

So that's kind of how um I got involved in ethics or and am involved in that process is serving as legal counsel for the board.

Um one thing that the board of ethics does is issue advisory opinions to people.

So any public we'll get into this later, but any public servant or elected official can request an advisory opinion.

Um, but the board of ethics is a volunteer board, so it meets once a month on a volunteer basis.

So, you know, they have to get a quorum, they have to publicly notice their meetings.

Uh so it can sometimes take a while to get an answer on that advisory opinion.

Um, so what the purpose of ethics officers are is sometimes people have a need for real world, you know, real-time advice where they need an answer quickly.

So if you have an assembly meeting coming up, or especially for employees or boards or commissions, uh another board or commission might have a uh commission meeting coming up tomorrow.

They want to know whether a disclosure needs to be made and they want an answer to that uh, you know, preferably within the next day.

Um so that's why myself and Joe Busa as municipal ethics officers exist um to provide answers to those questions in a more timely manner sometimes than the board is able to than the board of ethics is able to do through an advisory opinion.

Um, I will state, even though I'm the administrative hearing officer and am an attorney, I'm not an attorney on anybody who's seeking advice from me.

So I'm a public servant, you know, I serve as legal counsel for the board of ethics uh and you know, and trying to help people and guide people through the ethics code to you know make them uh come up with a solution or something that works where they they can easily comply with the code and not have any issues.

So I'm trying to help the person out, but I'm not nothing that it's not a attorney-client relationship or anything with me or anything in a in a privileged uh type of setting.

You could talk to Joe uh the alternate officer or assembly council if you have more questions about that or uh need advice uh in a in you know some sort of uh privileged setting.

I will say that as an ethics officer, you know, the the advice that's given is considered confidential, uh similar to advisory opinions that are given by the board.

So it's not like I'm gonna go tell anybody, you know, that so and so sought an uh advice from me as the ethics officer.

Um I would treat that as confidential.

It just goes into like how it could be potentially disclosed later on.

Um, I think it is oftentimes in people's uh, you know, if it if a complaint or something is filed later on, it's oftentimes in the person's best interest, you know, if they did seek advice uh from an ethics officer and then that comes out later.

Hey, I talked to the ethic ethics officer, they told me to do X, Y, and Z, and I did X, Y, and Z.

It's oftentimes in the person's best interest for that fact to come out anyways.

Um go on to the next slide there.

Um, the title, so this is just an overview of the code of ethics.

I don't uh obviously not going to go through every every single provision that's in the ethics code.

I'm gonna spend uh all of our time on the four issues that come up the most frequently, uh, and particularly the two.

So conf we'll spend the most time on conflicts of interest and then political and partisan activity, I think is the one that comes up the second most frequently, but by far the most common uh issue that comes up is conflicts of interest.

So we'll spend the majority uh of our time on that.

So the basic principle of the ethics code is that public service is a public trust.