We see this meeting of the personalized torture.

So it has the personalized torture tree in the colour.

Yeah, you can shoot.

When they did my left shoulder, I would have to do uh bench pressing with a wooden cane two days after server.

Yeah.

My first PC two days later.

We got ready to mom has near this real last year she did it up.

I will say that we have it for me.

Yeah.

It has been a while.

I exactly just I don't have some extent to see over one.

No.

Overly cautious.

That's what I think.

We're like, oh, you don't know how to drive.

Because you won't need to go this oh.

Got it.

See, that's when they're all switched.

And then it's always that like you go a mile and they're completely like hitting in our way.

So I can find it.

Yeah, I also hear people are okay.

I would not say that with this model generally more graphically more aggressive categories.

People used to not be here and were very friendly ways.

Right now it's do you try and use that?

Like I'll get people like doing a word.

Like um I'm just like maybe I like driving through the neighborhood.

It's like I'm going really slow.

Yeah, like you'd like inch out.

Right?

Yeah.

I noticed that here's a lot of like tree or things.

Yeah, you're like kind of like inching.

And I mean I have people like we're really annoyed, but I'm like something.

Like while I'm used to my home is much bigger.

I also like eighty percent of it is a home system totally.

Well, I also welcome to the Board of Ethics meeting.

Uh this meeting will be held both in person and also using an online video conferencing system.

You can join this meeting via video conference or via phone.

Um or you can stream it on channel one ninety or attend in person.

Uh are there any disclosures that need to be made at the beginning of the meeting?

Calling for any disclosures.

Okay.

Seeing as there are no disclosures.

Are there any changes to the agenda?

No changes to the agenda.

Are there any public service announcements?

There are no public service announcements.

Our next agenda item is the approval of the minutes from our meeting on January December.

So it's uh September 16, 2024, December 9, 2024, and February 26, 2025.

Well, we have all of those.

Sorry.

We have to approve all of those?

No, sorry, it's October 14, 2025, and December 15th, 2025.

Okay.

I move approval of those minutes.

Can you scroll down, Mike?

I don't have my agenda open, so I'm gonna have to rely on you.

Um, gotcha.

Perfect.

Okay, so we have two sets of minutes to approve from October and from December, and we have a motion to approve.

Is there any discussion of the minutes?

Oh, I guess do we need to second Jim's motion?

I guess I second Jim's motion.

Are there is there any discussion of the minutes before we take a vote on them?

Nope.

Okay.

All in favor of approving the minutes from the October 14, 2025 and December 15, 2025 meetings.

Say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The minutes are approved.

All right.

Um back to the agenda.

Um agenda.

Oh, yeah, thanks.

That's great.

Um, we have um a consent item on our agenda today, which is to approve the 2025 annual ethics report, uh, which the Bozeman City Attorney Greg Sullivan will now present.

Is that correct?

So we put it on your consent agenda, which basically means that there's no presentation.

Okay.

And it's not set up for you to discuss.

That's how we presented it.

We think it's a basically a ministerial thing for you to do.

Um you're required by uh the code of ethics to provide the city commission in a report.

We do this every year.

We're a little late.

Um the annual report looks a lot like every other year.

Um Jen did a lot of work and summarized the things that you did in 2025, especially related to modifying the code, adopting procedures for hearings.

Um I spent some time summarizing some of the questions that we answered in our office.

So you can see if there's any public comment.

If you guys have a question, you can certainly ask any questions about what's in the report.

Okay.

Um when do we see their report?

It's linked in here.

So my catch the link.

Can you tell me how to get to the agenda in here?

I see agendas, but it looks like it's city commission agendas unless I'm looking at the wrong place.

Yep.

Okay.

Or you know what?

I can probably just so from our from our home page.

Yeah.

There's two easy routes.

Okay.

Um, first one is the meetings button.

It's about halfway down under the banner image.

That'll take you to the meetings video page that has all the agendas, recordings, the draft minutes.

Oh, got it.

And then the other is on the events calendar as upcoming events.

So got it.

Okay, so I see it.

Okay.

Now I can get into the okay, perfect.

Thank you.

And then if you look inside at the agenda item.

It'll just open it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then it's a series of nested links.

So the agenda links to the cover page memo and then the attachment page.

And then the attachment, okay.

I do not have any questions about it.

Should I call for any public comment?

Okay, now is the time if anyone would like to make public comment on the 2025 annual ethics report.

Is there anyone online, Mike, to make comment?

There's no request.

Okay.

Seeing as that there was no one present and no one online waiting to make any um public comments.

And neither of us have any uh comments on the report.

Do I we vote to approve it?

Motion to approve it.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Okay.

The annual report is approved.

So the next step we do with that is we'll place it on the city commission's consent agenda, and that will be your transmittal of your report to them for last year.

Thank you for doing that.

Yeah.

Um great.

Okay.

Is there any public comment on any non-agenda items falling with the purview and jurisdiction of the board?

This is the time to comment on any non-agenda matter following with the scope falling within the scope of the Board of Ethics.

There will also be time in conjunction with each agenda item for public comment, but you may only speak once.

So is there currently any public comment on any non-agenda items falling within the purview and jurisdiction of the board?

Okay, seeing as there is none, we will move on to agenda item H, special presentation.

There is no item.

There are no special presentations.

Okay.

Are there any action items?

Okay, then we are to agenda item J, FYI discussion.

And here we will spend some time talking about the work plan that we started to hammer out in uh December, um, and then any discussion on the uh city, and then Greg will make a not a presentation or offer some comments on the feedback um he has gotten on the city's ethics training program.

Okay.

Um so we have I sent around an email um in on January 5th, uh recapping our discussion from the December 15th meeting and putting together um some guidance on our work plan for revising the code of ethics.

Um I have done a little bit of that work and um sent that to Mike just a few minutes ago.

I meant to make hard copies, but I'll send it to Jim too.

And um is are you able to open that?

Or is that too hard?

I haven't got it yet.

Oh, you haven't gotten it?

I wonder if um my you want me to email it to you?

Yeah.

Would you please no?

I mean I I just sent him a new one right now, but I'm wondering if it didn't send because I'm not on shows that it well, it doesn't.

It doesn't.

Shows that I sent it to you.

You have not gotten it.

Okay.

Um you can get on the Bozeman guest network.

Yeah, I think I'm on it.

Okay.

Unless I had to do something to open it up.

No, but I don't think so because I just got to the agenda.

Well, I mean, we don't need to go through it in um any particular detail.

I can talk about what I've done so far and where where how I think we should proceed at this point.

Does that work?

Okay, so I looked at the Bozeman City Charter, section seven, which is about conflicts of interest in the Board of Ethics and Campaign Finance, and that is like number one on my list, and I had some questions under that that sort of um jived with what you had talked about, um Greg.

Like do these things belong in the charter?

Do they belong in the charter in this way?

And so I have some um suggestion, suggested um revised language in here.

So that's the first thing I did.

I then looked at the and we obviously this will sort of set our work plan, so I don't think we're gonna hammer this out here.

But that's number one on my kind of new list of things.

Two, I looked at the declaration of policy, and I made some suggested revisions for how that could be tightened up and specified.

Um that's in the division four code of ethics.

Um three, I looked at the standards of conduct, which we had talked about in the last meeting were just revised, uh last revised in 2009.

I highlighted a number of portions.

I'll email this to you, Jim, and this will be like our new working document.

I highlighted a number of portions of the um standards of conduct that are vague and unhelpful, and then stepped back and thought, I'm not sure we need the standards of conduct at all.

Um so that's a question for us to work on.

Um at the end of the standards of conduct is the um uh there's the Board of Ethics provision buried in there at 2.03580, and I made a suggestion that this might all be consolidated 2.03600, which is where the board's powers and limitations are listed.

So I made that suggestion, which I have outlined here.

Um that was what I did on my own, and then what I have not done but have listed as five and six on this um new work plan is uh the specific portions of the code um in order that you had encouraged us to look at, Greg.

And what I think we should do today is divide up that work between the three of us and make a plan for getting that done before our next meeting.

Does that make sense?

Yep.

Um I'm gonna email this to you and um I wonder if transmitted from here.

Okay.

Okay.

Um I'm just gonna email this to you all, and I'm gonna email it from my um other email address and see if it goes.

I guess I'll add you in here, Mike, too, in case it just didn't send from my okay.

Okay, so hopefully that will get to you and we can have some sort of shared visual working with.

But I think I think that that's the next step is that you guys look at the suggested revisions I've made.

Particularly, maybe well, I guess Mark, Jim, and Greg.

Um, and then the questions I've raised, and then we divide up the key provisions that we want to revisit, which is use of city resources, conflict of interest, handling of gifts, and reporting of improper governmental action, as well as the less important, but you know, ones we want to address too, but maybe second to those, which is the definition of terms, person cover, treatment of public, handling of confidence, the other ones, all the rest of the portions.

So that's I think where the work needs to happen right now.

Do you want to go through that now?

Like divide them up now.

Sure.

So um kind of wondering um.

Oh, good.

Oh, you got it.

Oh, you got it.

Okay, good.

Yes.

So I guess one other approach is I looked at this a lot after our last meeting.

Is I've looked at making policies, code of ethics, confidentiality, conflict of interest.

Everybody writes it differently.

So I guess the first decision is, and I think you're kind of making saying that, rather than taking it starting over from scratch.

Let's go in and fine-tune what we've got.

I was approaching it from that angle, so I've looked through this.

So I think that's a proper approach.

In my past, I've written a lot of banking related policies, but a lot of them were HR.

It really is beneficial having one person do it, highlight what changes they made, and then if you have a group think, I think you have too many people working on these, it doesn't tie together.

Yes.

And if you're willing to do that, that makes a lot of sense to me.

We can divvy them up, but I'm happy to do that.

But just one person really needs to have the engagement with it.

That's what I found in doing policies in the past.

And I used to have different staff members do this paragraph and this paragraph, it ended up being a train wreck.

Yeah, no, I I agree.

I think um do you so in the key issues.

So um if you can scroll down, Mike to we can talk about these top ones now that we can see if we want to look at some of the language, but uh in in the key issues that are down in number five and six.

Um do you have a preference, Jim, between use of city resources, conflict of interest, gifts, and reporting?

I'm fine.

Mithenium.

All right, why don't you take looking through a lot of these, and I thought the wording was fine because every situation is gonna be so different.

Okay.

But it's good to revisit them and update our dates to be looked at.

Yeah.

So one thing that I'll mention for staff, just because I took some time over the weekend, went through stuff again.

If you look at the handbook, just a little bit.

So I'm just looking at stuff, but on page 12 of the handbook, I'm under four.

Does the gift gratuity or favor have a value to $100 or more?

If the answer is yes, and then it says the value is less than 100, you've got your yes and your no switched around.

So that's just like in the policy, okay.

Okay.

And I'm not sure.

Is that the handbook that was recently approved by the board?

Yeah.

What's the data?

Yep.

Okay.

Because we're not re we're not working with the handbook right now at all, right?

Just the code.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

No, that's what I'm wondering.

The handbook does not create new standards.

The handbook is simply an attempt because the code says we have to do a handbook, an attempt to put what's in the code in a format that's easy to easy for employees and uh elected and appointed officials to refer to.

So I just mentioned that as a passing website.

Yeah, I caught that last night.

Page 12 of your handbook.

So I mean, we have two hours today.

So whatever you guys want to do as far as using your two hours today, we can do that.

Okay.

Um we cannot get into detail.

If you want to go do more homework and come back at another time and dive in, um, we could talk about some of these.

Okay.

Especially, I think we could would be a good idea to have a conversation about the charter.

Okay.

Um, so let's start at the top and then look at each part that I gave some attention to, and then see what where we get, and then we can divide the remaining pieces before we part.

So my suggestion was that um I wasn't sure why these things appear in the charter and why they appear in the charter as general provisions.

Um my suggestion was to revise it to say just in order to foster transparency, accountability, integrity, effectiveness, and trust in city government, the city commission shall establish by ordinance an independent board of ethics pursuing to state law, and then some of that language that remains to conduct hearings on appropriate, so to give more of an overview of what the Board of Ethics does, but not um the current um go diving right into conflicts of interest seems very specific in that location and it's covered elsewhere.

Um let's let's talk about the charter for a second.

So the charter was approved.

The current city charter was approved by the voters in 2006, and it became effective in 2008.

The only way to amend the charter is either is by a vote of the people.

So we can't change the charter?

You can't change the charter.

The charter can be changed, but only by a vote of the people.

Right, right.

The charter can be changed.

And currently, this local government study commission every 10 years, the Montana Constitution requires the city to put a question in front of the voters whether they want to create a study commission.

Obviously, in 2004, the answer was yes, that resulted in this current charter.

In 2014, the answer was no.

In 2024, the answer was yes.

So currently, the Bozeman Study Commission is doing a lot of work looking at drafting an alternate alternative chart.

Um Mike is the city's ex officio, and so I would let him comment on their work so far.

Okay.

They have been given a pretty detailed presentation on the charter provision for ethics and how the code works, how we implement annual training.

Um I do not see like reforming anything in the charter related to ethics as some one of the primary things that they're interested in doing right now.

That's to say that not to say that they couldn't.

If you guys were very interested in trying to come up with a recommend with recommended new language for the charter, you could certainly pass that on to the study commission.

If they accepted that, then they may put it into this alternate charter that they're gonna probably recommend to the voters for next fall.

Okay.

So can I ask you a question about so this is article seven in the charter, general provisions, and then conflict of interest is A, and Board of Ethics is B.

Is there a reason why this appears here in this way?

So I wasn't here at the time, neither was Mike, so I can't tell you exactly what the study commission was thinking, though a couple of things that may be helpful.

Um Bozeman's charter when it was drafted in 2004 was the first time that the city ever had a charter.

Right.

So with the adoption of that charter, the city adopted a charter form of government that's implemented through a commission manager structure.

Um when those folks in 2000 in the 2004 study commission were looking at what to put into the charter, one of the primary uh things that they looked at was the national civics civic leagues model charter.

And I can't tell you sitting here if this language is close to or what was in that model civic charter.

Um I think what the study commission was interested in is having a statement about a conflict of interest, specifically that first sentence that's in 701A that the use of public office for private gain is prohibited, that's the standard, and everything else that we work with folks in training, that's one of the primary things that we say.

I don't know if that was something from the model charter.

And is the reference to it here somehow um important over uh it appearing lower down in the um so if you look at section Mike, can you pull up the charter?

I'm looking again.

Oh yeah.

I've got it in front of me too.

701A and B.

So Mike is showing you the municipal code and how the charter is structured.

So if you look on the left side, you see a preamble for the charter.

This is the governing document for how the city, how the city's form of government operates.

Then Article 1, powers of the city, article two talks about the legislative body, which is the city commission, article three is the executive, that's the city manager, four is departments, five is financial management, six is how elections operate.

Then I'm making an assumption right now that they wanted to talk about ethics.

So they put ethics in Article 7 along with campaign finance.

Article 8 is about how you amend the charter, and I think that's the end of it, right?

Transition.

So they wanted to have a statement in the charter about ethics, and they wanted the charter to establish the board, they were looking for a place to put it, and given the rest of the structure, that's where they landed.

Okay.

Instead of it's like a standalone article.

So is it the charter that creates the board, not the code?

And then the code.

So in your opinion, is there any reason to change this then?

Um I don't necessarily identify a reason.

I think the charter provision on conflicts of interest in that they create that first sentence as a standard is very strong.

Okay, right.

Then the second sentence is telling the commission that they have to implement it by ordinance, and that's the code.

The charter then goes and says you have to have things about acting in official capacity on matters in which you have a private interest, how you accept gifts, acting in private command, and so the charter lists things that must be in the code of ethics.

Got it.

And the commission is bound to adopt, and all of those things that are listed in the first few sentences there are in the code.

Okay, right.

And the commission needs to ensure that until the charter would be changed, that those topics are addressed in the code of ethics.

You have to have a statement of purpose, you have to talk about disclosure of finances, um, and we do that and fines and imprisonment for violations.

That's an interesting thing.

So everything that's in the code flows from these charter.

And so as you do your work plan and you're thinking about what best practices are for a government like ours, think about the way this charter section is structured and what's in here, because that's what we have to address unless the charter would be changed.

So okay, let me just clarify because at our December meeting, when we were laying out kind of our game plan, you encourage us to start with the charter and the broad statement there, and then figure out like the questions are what does that mean about the and is it useful?

So I guess I have two questions.

If it's unlikely that the charter is going to change, are we using the charter to guide the code review then not to not to reflect back on revising the charter?

Yeah.

Okay.

That being said, if you guys right, I mean the reason one of the powers of the board is to take a look at what's in the code.

And that's the basis and make recommendations to the city commission on what should be in the code.

And that's the basis for your work plan are these things still working for us.

Got it.

Um because that's in the code, I I think it is within your purview to look at the charter provision and see is that still working.

And if so, what how do you affect that?

And you got a few months left if you want to get to the study commission and make a suggestion that they would incorporate some amendments on conflicts of interest and the board into what they're proposing for a new charter.

Okay.

And Mike, as the ex officio to the study commission, can probably speak to what that looks like if the study commission would even take that up.

Okay.

Well, I was fine with section 71A and B.

So wouldn't what did you have for thoughts on that?

Oh, well, I I I guess I'm assuming it has to go in then two or three.

Yes.

The the order of uh relationship makes more sense to me now.

So um, so I don't so then okay, Mike.

Do you have anything you want to add to that then?

Yeah, so um, well, Greg was discussing, I pulled up the report from that 2004-2006 study commission.

Um, they don't have a lot about the ethics provision, but they said upon the recommendation of the model charter that they've taken steps to adopt best current practices and then they you know reiterate principle of employment and promotion by merit basis only, and then here's where they add the provided for mandatory training of city officials, board members, and employees on the state and city ethics code.

Currently, no such training takes place, and have also provided as permitted by state law for the creation of an advisory board to assist in updating the city ethics code as well as to assist the city on implementing training and the enforcement of governmental ethics.

So while the city had a code of ethics provision prior to the charter, the trainings specifically on it was not a requirement.

They want their this statement I read is they wanted that to be front and center, and one of the things at the beginning they said is uh with the best practices to ensure the city shall be administered in the manner above reproach.

Okay, and then as far as where the study commission is currently, um they're in their process, they've adopted a their study plan for this um spring as they get towards their recommended um changes and amendments, and they have beginning of May laid out as for the what they're calling um other tweaks identified.

Uh so one of the things that they heard from our finance director that they've included in this is the charter specifies exact dates by which certain portions of our budgeting process will occur, and that's just not really conducive to best practice for how we could operate.

So those those types of changes they've included the preamble.

So if there were other suggestions that were outside of the big buckets of content that they've identified, I think that's where they would be looking.

Okay.

So if once we've got the code review done and it filters back into the charter in some way, we should and we want to make suggestions to the study commission, we should do that by May.

Yes, and one of the suggestions could be that you're satisfied with the way that this section of the charter is.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay, that's all.

So then if that's the case, let's move on to the declaration of policy.

Can I just add one thing that I think might be helpful?

So in Mike said that prior to the adoption of the charter, there was not a requirement for annual training.

And the study commission wanted annual training.

And so in Mike, if you can scroll right there in 701B, it says it.

Okay.

This board did not exist prior to the charter.

So there was state codes and there was even city ethics codes.

So the study commission back in 2004 said, what do we want to do to enhance this ethics program?

Created annual training, made it part of the oath, and then created this board, right?

Pursuant to state law, which state law has had for I don't know how long.

The ability to have a local board of ethics, if the local government has a local board of ethics, complaints come to the board instead of going to the county attorney.

And that was something that they must have discussed and wanted to give the city the ability to sort of handle its own ethics issues rather than deferring them to the county attorney.

Okay.

So we will move between any revisions to the code and the charter to make sure that remains consistent and plan to provide some feedback to the city commission, the study commission by May.

I mean, if you want to.

Okay.

Okay.

So declaration of policy on this my notes say, what is the purpose of this declaration and should it be revised?

Um and it's cut in here in uh oh, this is my original document.

Anyway, so what is the purpose of such a uh I mean, is this like beyond a preamble?

Is it binding?

I made some revisions so that in my mind it was clearer what the purpose was, but um look at the original version.

So the back to the charter.

The charter requires the ordinance, so the code of ethics to include a statement of purpose.

So I think you have to have one.

Um what we when we've issued opinions and we issue guidance to people on what course of action to take in relation to a standard that's in the code, we look at this declaration of policy.

Um we talk about being independent and partial, accountable, partial, accountable and responsible.

Um decisions are made in the proper channels of government structure, that you can't use public office and deployment for personal gain, nor right we talk to people about that as we're interpreting or reading the standards that follow in the code.

Okay.

So let's pause on that one too, because I want to think more about what the question of does this need to be revised mean?

The revisions I propose do not change any content as much as they streamline it, try and enumerate it so it's easier to see the purpose of it, but um but I don't think we need to kind of go through that right now.

Um I'd rather spend so Jen, are you waiting to make a presentation?

You're not, you're just here.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, so why don't we spend our time today discussing this question?

Are these standards of conduct useful?

And what is the purpose of having the standards of conduct laid out here when some of them are very vague?

So I guess my question is as I put it in here, doesn't make uh uh do these standards of conduct sub serve a specific purpose?

Um, or do the specific sections underneath that have to do with the use of resources, treatment of the public, etc.

get the job done.

There are obviously parts in the standards of conduct like to act morally or with propriety that seem super problematic.

This idea that you're supposed to devote time and effort to the successful functioning of an agency is very confusing.

Make continual efforts to maintaining, I mean, does that mean engage in annual training?

I mean, I'm not sure if these there are some that are not problematic, but they also are perfectly well captured in the specific sections below.

So and then there's nothing in here if you're gonna have standards of conduct.

I was gonna ask whether we need a duty to report.

So there's like the whistleblower function, like you can't be you know, retaliated against, but is there a duty to report observed unethical conduct?

Um anyway, so those are two questions.

What's the purpose of these and what to do about the really vague parts?

Um I cannot tell you what uh the city commission was thinking when they were adopted.

We'd have to go back and figure out at what point in time these were adopted, and it was definitely for it was before us I started here.

Um I can talk about how we use them when we're providing guidance.

Um they have also been used as standards for complaints when there wasn't something, behavior or conduct that didn't fit neatly into one of the other substantive provisions.

Um ethics code is essentially a legislative act establishing sort of compromise standards for how people should behave.

Um I look at the standards of conduct in two ways.

One as sort of standalone things that somebody could be accused of, and then we would have a hearing on those standards of conduct.

I also think of them as an umbrella, kind of like the statement of policy for the an umbrella for the rest of the code.

So I I totally see what you're saying about what does act morally mean, right?

That in the ethics code is a really interesting question.

Is you guys go through your process and look at other ethics codes, do they have standards of conduct that are written this way?

I think that's kind of one of the purposes of your work plan.

Um this should conduct themselves with propriety propriety.

Is that the best standard of conduct?

I was looking at those are the kinds of things that I think are totally within your purview to take a look at and say, how are they being used?

What does this mean to employees and officials?

What does it mean to the public?

And should we be doing it differently given it's the year 2026?

Because those could have been the term honestly and prudently.

We say morally and honestly.

I mean, honestly, I can get behind morally is a mess.

Integrity, propriety mess.

No.

So the other thing that we do, and if you look on the back wall, you see the city's core values.

Those were adopted by the city commission, I think in the mid-2000s.

I think they did that.

That was a collaborative effort between the commission, city manager, and the staff to adopt those core values.

Those core values are used in recruitment.

And integrity is listed there.

So what integrity means to you guys might be very different than what it means to somebody else.

Understandable.

Right.

These are sort of all reasonable person standards, right?

Um I guess what I would just ask you guys to think about is somebody adopted these standards for a reason at some point in time.

We've been up the city has been operating under these standards.

And so if you're going to adjust the standards, just be very cautious about what you're adjusting them to, and then make sure that as you you tie this back to the charter provisions, and make sure that you're still holding that charter intent of the use of public office for private gain is prohibited.

I wonder we should back up.

What provisions have been problematic for you and your staff or staff?

All of them, or is there some that just did jump out that statement?

I mean, I I think what Sarah's recognizing is like what does that mean?

Yeah.

And for me to when I don't know if Jen has any insight into this, but giving guidance to employees about what act how to act morally, like I'm not doing that.

Right.

Um kind of looking at are there specific standards that are easy to easier to apply that employees can understand.

Um morally is like this umbrella type approach.

I just wanted to add like a little um practical consideration.

So when I do the ethics trainings, and obviously every trainer is different, and we I talk about the standards of conduct with staff, I do uh make a point to point out how vague these terms are and have a discussion about that with them.

Um and to your point, you know, it's just an open-ended discussion where I can't really give them any concrete guidance as to what does propriety mean, but you know, rest assured that we are, at least when I'm training, having those that exact conversation with staff, um, and then sort of explaining like, well, because these are so vague, this is why it's so important for you to not analyze these ethics questions in a vacuum, and you really need to talk with your coworkers and your supervisors and the directors, um, because there can be so many different interpretations uh to what is considered you know moral.

You can do the vagueness is a good thing or a bad thing.

That's problematic, it's what I'm hearing about vagueness morally.

Yeah, I mean, I think for it for training, um the staff when they come to training, they understand that the scenarios are intentionally gray to get them to just think about ethics generally.

I think it's more challenging when you're giving them trying to teach them standards to apply to a gray scenario, and the standards are also gray.

Um it makes for good discussion, so you know there's that, but um yeah, I just want to add that in terms of like a practical from a practical standpoint when we do the trainings.

So it's a role of this board to look at this and make changes, but I guess you're dealing with it every day.

You know, I haven't looked at it for three months and got back into it over the weekend and would it be prudent for us just like Sarah's done here, go through and ask you about everything she's got highlighted, give us your input, because then again, this obviously has to go to a commission for if we want to change it.

Well, what one bigger picture question I have does this have to be standards of conduct?

Because I was looking at the um the uh I'm gonna forget the name of it.

The um institute oh no, nope, nope.

The International City Managers Association Code of Ethics, and it is organized somewhat differently in a series of tenets under which there are guidelines, and that's more specific.

So the tenets are of course broad and you know context matters, but the guidelines provide some sort of rationale and kind of examples almost, and that to me seems more useful.

Still not cut and dry, obviously, because that's the nature of ethics versus you know, law or policy, but it's um there's more it's almost like more pedagogical in a way.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

So I'm curious if this has to be like standards of conduct that or even it could stay standards of conduct, but could be revised so that it's these key tenets about good government under which there's some sort of um kind of explanation and possibly example that then links down to the all the things that follow in that next section of the code.

Do you know what I mean?

I think I do.

So I think for you guys and your work plan and this work that you're doing, this is the first time that the board has taken up this big picture question, and I think it's a one of the reasons that we suggested it to you was because at some point in time it's somebody should be doing this work on the way this code is set up.

And so I want to encourage you guys to ask these types of questions because that's it needs to happen.

Um as you were considering whether they should be a standard of conduct or a tenant or some other structure, that's up to you.

I think Jen's point is very good about make sure that you're clear about the effect of these, and can somebody file an ethics complaint on one of these standards of conduct so far.

We've seen that if you change the structure and want it to be something different, different kind of umbrella to the code, make it clear that you can't file a complaint on one of these tenants that you have to spicy, pick a very specific behavioral standard conflict, gift, that kind of thing.

That's what you're gonna go after.

So in this section, can we add um something that notes the purpose of these?

Like the purpose of these is to outline core values and in illustrate with guidelines so as to link them to the specific provisions below, because I think it's the specific provisions below that provide a sense of whether there's a ground for a complaint, right?

The other observation I'll make, yes, Sarah, you could you could do that.

So the other thing is that not all of these standards of conduct have the same effect.

Right.

If you look at A, you're talking about the vagueness of moral acting morally or the propriety language.

But look at F and G.

Those are very different things than what is in A and B.

And so if you're gonna establish some kind of standard that people would be held to, yeah, that we could train on, like Jen was saying, you could lead a discussion about what that meant.

Somebody could file an ethics complaint on that just don't take all the standards and do something.

No, no, some of these are not problematic, but some of them are really problematic.

So one up one thing is we would just edit it down to the ones that are not problematic.

The other is we generally reframe it in terms of a set of values illustrated by whatever, and then linked to the the goal is for these to help people evaluate the things we low, finances, conflict of interest, treatment of persons, right?

You guys could totally do that.

Okay.

Just how they're viewed.

Okay, I'm just sorry, making some notes about it.

Yeah, and if you don't mind, I can jump in here for a second because I've been doing a little archival digging while you you were having this discussion.

So the from what I can see, the the standard of the standards of conduct portion came into the code in 1987.

In 2007, F and G were added.

In 2001, I was added.

So there's been to Greg's point actionable changes added to this that seem in a different spirit than the original ones in 1987.

There was prior to that in the 82 version of code, it's referenced, and I can't find that version, but there was no ordinance in 1982 that specifically modified that section.

So when it was fully codified at that point, and then in 1987, they went and added these specific conduct.

Um piggybacking on Jen's point, the propriety one comes up a lot in the training, and we'll hear people routinely refer to the perception of impropriety as a consideration, even if it doesn't violate what you're saying down below the specific actions.

So while the vagueness has some difficulties in training, this tenants approach, statement of values, aspirational dreams, whatever whatever these are going to function as.

No, no, yeah.

I agree.

I think having some sort of, I mean that's what I'm calling like pedagogical, like having some sort of like primer in there of like what you know, how do we think about what ethical government is, right?

And that's where some of those ideas of like transparency, accountability, right?

Um appearance of propriety, actual propriety, right?

So I think it could accomplish that better without setting up something like morality as a standard of conduct that someone could then use to make a claim.

But okay, so I think I I think I understand how to go back and kind of rethink those and maybe propose some changes to that section.

Um can I just make a comment about what Mike said, which I think is maybe helpful for you guys.

Um which one came in 2007?

From so they got uh Yeah, F and G both came in 2007.

Okay, and then H and I were 2010.

Correct.

And F and G in the um whereas um portion was implementing the adopted charter from 2006 election.

Yep.

So to put a fine point on that.

In 2004, the voters said, yes, let's have a study commission.

Between 2004 and 2005, just like right now.

The and into 2006, the study commission did its work, added the ethics provisions to the charter, the voter said yes in the fall of 06.

The charter was effective on January 1st of 2008.

So in 2007, in the year between the vote and when the charter was effective, the city commission realized that the charter was newly adopted and needed to do something, and then put in uh F and G in they chose to put it in the standards of conduct.

And must have also addressed the conflict of interest provisions.

They they did a ton of work with this ordinance.

They added the financial disclosure, they created the board, the it was everything that was in the charter.

They did by ordinance in 2007.

Okay.

Then H and I came in 2010 because the city commission was concerned about a couple things that were happening, and we did not have a whistleblower provision.

So H and I, and I was here for that, and I remember writing this, was added to the standards of conduct, not as this sort of high level pedagogical pedagogical thing.

Got it.

I nailed it.

Um but to establish a substantive standard.

And if you scroll down in the code, you can also see a whole new provision on reporting improper governmental conduct.

That's the whistleblowing session.

Right, yeah, yeah.

So you guys have the ability to make recommendations to move things around, totally restructure this, revamp this if you think that's what an organization like ours in the year 2026 should have.

Okay.

Do you what do you think about including a duty to report observed on ethical behavior?

Or I think that's a pretty big lift and a pretty big burden to place on employees regarding their colleagues.

Got it.

And their supervisors.

Did they do that right?

And our office is not the ethics police.

So I would think that would be a pretty big lift given that there is a complaint procedure.

And right to file a complaint.

There is the ability for employees to talk with a supervisor to work through the internal human resource process.

Well, financial discrepancies.

Yeah, and I'm not gonna equate like our code of ethics to like a financial requirement under Jen's license, our bar license and my bar license, we have a duty to report.

If we don't report something that's like a violation of our license, also and we've done that, and that's not easy to do.

Reporting other attorneys.

Yeah.

So I think in the city context, that would be a pretty big change in how the code of ethics has been treated over time.

Okay.

Good.

Um next question was just sort of structural.

Like you have this section, if we go to the code.

Um down at the bottom of, so we've got the specific dimensions, right?

The five all the 500s, and then in 580.

Yeah, for some reason, after conflict of interest, post-apoint financial disclosure up, there's this board of ethics provision.

And then in 600, if you keep going down, there's the duties and powers of the board.

This seems like it should go there.

Like, there's the board of ethics, here are the duties.

I don't understand why it's here.

Do you is there a reason for that?

Um I'm gonna so I'll I'll say something, and then maybe Jen has a comment because Jen led the effort to redo the complaint process.

Yeah, right.

And so in that, I think we identified there's two sections.

I don't know why those are in there.

Mike, can you scroll down a little bit and see if that's that's 2007?

580 was adopted in 2007, uh, duties and powers of the board was adopted in 2007.

So for some reason, before my time, somebody wanted to separate establishment of the board in 580 from its powers and duties in 600.

And so 580 was more uh here's the board exists, and here's how the board functions, and then a separate section that laid out the powers and duties and what they're responsible for.

I certainly think I'm looking at Jen.

I think we could combine them into one section to make it more streamlined.

I just don't think it makes sense to have like in the middle of these other provisions, you have one talking about the board.

I mean, then there's another one after it, even in the specific.

So, okay, well, if there's not some compelling reason why it is in as a at 580.

Now we cleaned up 580, or you cleaned up 580 recently, right?

600.

The report on the process was cleaned up right.

Didn't we look at that back in what date?

That was February 25 was the adoption that's changed.

Yeah.

580 600.

So Mike, will you scroll up to 580?

And I just want to go through what I had said about.

And I can give you a little bit of history here too.

580 and what that is.

And the difference between what's in 580 and what's in 600.

580 is the establishment of the board and its organization and structure.

Then F is Mike and I and Jen and Chelsea, who's our new legal assistant is here.

Uh that's what 580 does is establish the structure.

So whoever wrote it thought, hey, let's put the structure in one section, and then let's go down to 600 and then say what the board can and cannot do.

That was just a legislative choice to separate those.

I think as you guys go through 580 and 600 recognize that legislative choice to make that distinction, and I still think you need provisions on the organizational structure, who the city attorney is the legal advisor for the board, what the terms are appointment capacity, those kinds of things.

You should still have that to some extent in the code.

And then five 600 is like what can you do?

What do you do?

So again, it was just a legislative choice to create two different structures in 2007.

Okay.

But so in your opinion, is that okay.

I could I am inclined to consolidate everything to do with the board and the reporting and the process into 600.

Uh yeah, I mean you could have like 600A would be the board.

Yeah, like A1 was everything that's in 580, A through whatever.

Yeah.

Then 600B was powers and duties of the board, and then everything listed there.

You could certainly do that.

Okay.

I'm gonna better, then we can go back to it, but for some, it just doesn't make sense to me this way.

It just feels like it randomly pops up in between other stuff.

The other thing that we've been doing, and Mike, will you go to the Municode section on boards?

And I just want to show you right.

So there's a very different section right under Article 5 of the Muni Code, and we have been making slow but steady progress that you can see all those divisions that are reserved.

We pulled things out of the municipal code because they didn't need to be there, and instead had the city commission adopt resolutions that establish boards.

Okay, having all of those appointment terms, all of that in done by resolution instead of embedded in the code.

Now I am making an assumption that in 2007 when they wrote that code, that ordinance that adopted created the board, they were wanting to put it in the code because of the charter that said you have to have a board ethics.

So I I don't have a problem that some of that stuff would be pulled out of the code and done by a resolution.

Oh, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure that I think uh I mean I'll I can revisit it, we can revisit it that with that um insight in mind.

I I wasn't saying that I thought anything was extraneous, I just didn't understand why it was organized in this way.

Yeah.

Um to the to the conversation that you were having about authoring and having multiple paragraphs done by multiple people.

So the board and the duties of the board were inserted together.

Uh-huh.

Ordinances came in and changed those.

Ordinance came in putting the whistleblower section in between those two as just a choice.

Yeah.

The code got renumbered.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it you're seeing the work of multiple hands just through the legislative process, and there has not been this concerted full code look.

Okay.

Okay.

So what you're bringing up is just organization of the code.

Me.

Yeah, yeah.

I just, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So okay, we'll we'll we'll tackle that.

Yeah.

Um, I think the last thing we want to, this is helpful to have all these notes before I go back and like think about it again in terms of the history and stuff.

Yeah, so this is the last thing we want to figure out.

We want to divide these up so that each of us can take a stab at one section.

And so why don't you take handling of gifts?

Because it has a financial aspect.

Does that work, Jim?

Two three five four.

I shrink you.

Okay.

And as part of that assignment, are we looking at ambiguity?

Are we looking at intent or yeah, kind of everything?

Is it clear?

Is it thorough?

Is it um is it?

You know, all kind of all of it.

It might be that it's just fine.

Um I give you a little bit of insight into the gift stuff.

Yeah.

So I am looking at Mike and Jen.

I think they may say that one of the biggest questions that people get in training is about gifts.

Yeah.

Um that provision has evolved significantly over the last 15 years.

Um I started working for the city, there was an outright prohibition on accepting any gift.

At the same time, there was significant confusion because state law has a standard on gifts that's set at $50.

So people were saying all the time, hey, I can take that gift if it's under $50.

And then they didn't realize that the city code of ethics said outright prohibition, though you can't take anything.

So if you look at $540 and all of the rules related to gifts, and look at the legislative history at the bottom of that, you can see that it's old, right?

Um all the way to the bottom, Mike.

And so when you see that reference to uh night, there it is, probably the first time that the city ever did anything about gifts was in 1987.

Then we came in 2007, and somebody must have done something about gifts in 2007.

Then in 2012, we realized some of the things weren't working, and that's the major overhaul for gifts was done in 2012.

And then we added things in 2021, like the educational scholarship and like the union benefit stuff.

So in 2012, when we had the outright prohibition in place, we were hearing feedback from employees that it wasn't workable.

It wasn't what?

It wasn't workable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And examples were uh given to me at the time.

Like if somebody puts at Christmas or holidays, puts a bag of cookies on the garbage can, you mean that we can't accept the cookies.

If uh a police officer walks into a coffee shop and somebody says, hey, I want to buy you a cup of coffee, thank you for your work, that means I can't take the cup of coffee.

And a little literal reading of the outright prohibition was putting us in a position to have to say, I'm sorry, but the answer is yes, that's what the code says.

So we had lengthy discussions with the board with you guys, your predecessors, about how to fashion something that would make it work.

And if you go up to the very first statement in the gift provision in 2012, we added um the second sentence, not in ensure employees are not influenced in performance of their work.

Then we added the next sentence way down, these standards recognize legitimate government interests exist that allow an employee to accept a gift without it being considered the use of public office for private game.

That's the cookies, that's the coffee, that's those things like that.

I mean, every holiday season, people in the private sector, they don't know.

They send a box of chocolates to a department.

Right, it's not the right, those are not tied to any one specific project or any one specific issue.

It's thank you for your service, right?

Um in 2012, we then said, well, okay, so how should it work?

And then so we established we scroll up to B's to be able to show B C and D.

Okay, those work together.

So B is an outright standard that if any of those exists, I don't care what the gift is, you can't take it.

So if it's in influencing you improperly to depart from your duties, then the answer is no.

It doesn't matter what the dollar value is.

If it's rewarding you for something you did, the answer is no, it doesn't matter what the dollar value is.

Then the board had a long discussion about B3.

And those are 2,012 dollars.

Right.

And the board said we need an upper limit.

Yeah.

Because it's if people are giving gifts, even if it complies with B1 and B2 above a hundred dollars, that starts to look like not a good idea.

So they established that upper limit.

Um then the board really wanted to sort of say, okay, is there some other parameters that we need to look at?

And they said between 25 or 100 was okay if it complies with B1 and B2, meaning not intended to reward or influence, and you do it at a public event.

And so we've had circumstances where a specific department of the city is tied to a private foundation.

The private foundation likes to do employee recognition awards, and they had been doing those awards behind closed doors, and those awards were greater than 25.

I said under this provision, you can do those employee recognition awards if they're over 25, but you gotta open that meeting up and have it be a public event.

Do you feel that 25 needs to be revisited?

That's that's gonna be up to you guys, right?

Like what are what are we here about?

Um I mean we can we can we can think about that.

Um if you're gonna do that, you should really sort of understand what changing the dollar value would mean and what kinds of things would come over $25 between 25 and 100, and what that really means.

Um lunch.

Um Bowser and Works.

100 is right.

I mean, those are the kinds of things that I think as you guys were contemplating those dollar values, you should really think about what what kind of thing that is.

Um I think that would be an interesting thing to compare to other cities, you know.

Like what do other cities kind of on par with us say?

Just out of curiosity.

Just a note on D2, it just had D2 came up not that long ago.

Uh we get employees and elected officials are invited to go to things, and some outside entity will say we're gonna pay all your expenses, and so we establish a standard that hey, that's payment or reimbursement for travel expenses.

That's gonna be way more than a hundred bucks.

You can do that if it's complies with B1 and B2, right?

The reward or the influence.

Um, and then if it doesn't place you under obligations, serves the public good and is not lavish or extravagant.

That last phrase was sort of like golf trip to Scotland, right?

I mean, those kinds of things that you hear in the news, that's what we were trying to guard against in D2.

That's what we were trying to guard against in D2.

But there are employees and elected officials who get some other entity to spend thousands of dollars to bring our employee or our official to an event.

And that's okay.

I mean, no official capacity whatsoever.

Correct.

So you're you'd be looking at the limits.

Could does a city employee have to look at them well drawing.

Yeah, we scroll down, Mike, to F.

So we've also been very careful about what a gift doesn't include, right?

And F1 is maybe Jim what you're talking about.

If it's in their private capacity without relationship to their employment or official position.

So employees all over the city are members of nonprofit boards.

They're doing that as like city employee now appointed to that board because they're a city employee.

If they're just wanting to contribute to that board, they're doing that in their private capacity.

So let's go out for pizza and talk about the upcoming election for whatever.

They're fully in their private capacity.

Protected by F1.

Um we've also had like F2 was added because we get employees that go to conferences, and there's like a fishbowl where you throw your business card in, and at the end of the conference, there's a random drawing that somebody can win something pretty nice.

Like they get to do that because the drawing was open to all attendees, and the receipt of the prize doesn't place them under obligation.

That was something the board added in 2012.

Something could be uh more than 100 bucks under F3 if it's recognition of public service.

We do that with gifts to retiring employees.

They get a piece of some of them.

If you've been here long enough, you get that.

Um if they're gonna pay for officiating a ceremony, we've added five.

Hey, we just want to be clear that the benefits you get aren't gifts, and then we added six, and I think seven.

Um we get labor unions who are national unions negotiate with major retailers, and the major retailer wants to give uh reduction for the purchase of something to a first responder.

And that they're only a first responder because of their job, and so we carved out seven and eight to say those are not gifts.

So I just wanted to go through that with you guys as you're sort of revamping and thinking about the gift provision a little differently.

I wanted you guys to have a good understanding of how it's been structured, the major reform that happened in 2012, and then how the board has looked at the gift provision in response to questions that have come up over time.

Okay.

Question I would have also then is what percentage of city employees really understand this.

It's just kind of confusing.

So good question.

I think it comes up every year.

Um I think we tried in the handbook to kind of dumb it down into a flow chart.

Yeah, and that's where it is.

The gentleman were given us a lot.

So the flowchart has been around for a long time.

I don't know how long, but um and I know when we train, like this past year, we had copies of the flowchart to try to try to help staff in addition to copies of the code, but we thought, well, maybe let's try providing the flow chart.

Um because it is complicated.

Um, and I don't know if there is a way to streamline it or make it any less complicated.

Yeah.

And it's hard.

You know, just it's complicated.

So it's complicated.

My my funny little story is I last year I was in a local restaurant, and I went by one of the city commissioners, and then got busy.

I said, Well, why don't you buy a drink?

Well, I don't think I can do that.

I said, Yeah, you go up to 25 bucks.

Oh, is that the number?

What's the response?

And like honestly, in 2012, the board wrestled with all of these iterations and all of those questions and tried to come up with, as I said, ethics code as a legislative compromise, trying to establish rules, and if you go to you got the legislative intent, and then you got the very strict standards in B.

Where's the line?

Public office can't be used for private gain.

Where's the line?

And I think that is within your discretion and your work plan to make a recommendation.

Is that still work?

Can we streamline it?

Is this 25 100?

Are the strict standards in C, right?

I mean, that's something that you guys get to sort of wrestle with.

Okay.

So as the recipient who gets gift disclosure forms that are in E, I get a lot of questions on the gift disclosure and specifically the 25 to 100 range.

Um we will hear all the time, somebody gave me this thing, and I didn't have an opportunity to decline it, whether it's just dropped off for them, whether it's in a situation where it would be disadvantageous to the city for them to offend somebody and not take it.

And so we get questions all the time about I got a thing, it's in this weird grade 25 to 100.

I feel some way about it.

What am I supposed to do?

And you know, we we have the disclosure, what did you do with it?

Um we've had in practice when I received one in there in that realm, we provided it to HR, and then around the this was back when we still did holiday parties at the holiday party, they did a raffle, and they I mean, one of the things the holiday party all they had for any employee was eligible for the things in this in this raffle, and it some of it was you know, one of them I know was eight extra vacation hours that somebody just won as a as a prize.

So these type of gifts were given to HR to make it available to everybody so that I personally wasn't taking, and I think for me it was like 40 bucks because it was four tickets for an admission to something that they only handed them to me because I was doing something in for my job, dropping things off there, and they were like, hey, take these.

Um I want to share another thing.

So in the annual report, one of the things towards the end, maybe the very last thing, we wrote a section about like some of the guidance that we gave in 2025.

The very last thing in that guidance is a description of how we handled some gift issues, and they come up.

Um so you guys can read what we wrote in there about how we handle those things.

I think Mike's example is very common.

Okay, if somebody's given something, we say, okay, let's see if other how other people can benefit from it, and we raffle it.

That is a very common practice that HR does.

Um I had a recent one that's not in the report because it didn't happen in 2025.

Um a department in the city, one employee was working with some members of the public, and somebody donated things to that department.

In addition to donating things to that department, they also donated a very valuable thing to the employee.

And the employee recognizing these standards, asked the question, can I take that?

And it's worth way more than 100 bucks.

So the guidance to the employee was no, it violates C3 and so or B3.

And so what the employee did was just gave it to the city, right?

Because the employee was doing that work in their official capacity, they could not accept that gift.

I I would suggest that that kind of approach, no matter how this is written, is a good approach, sort of from a big picture gift idea, because we're still sort of asserting the use of public office for private gates prohibited, recognizing that charter provision.

Now, how do you implement it?

If an employee receives something that's really valuable because of what they're doing for their job, they should not personally benefit from that.

The city can and the citizens can more broadly, but not that specific employee personally.

See, it's how you sort out you have different levels.

In my background, a few times I had people come in and say, applying for a loan, or deal in real estate.

Why don't I host you down in my condo in Vegas and I'll pay for your trip and we can discuss this?

Well, many thousands.

No, I don't even want to talk to you.

And that usually was a reason for me to become really suspicious.

Then there was the middle of the road where somebody's why don't you come out and hunt or fish in my place?

Okay, which the value?

And then you can have those who come in with cinnamon rolls or a bottle of wine.

And so kind of three scales on this thing on what employees are facing.

Or the I'll buy you a beer in a local restaurant, and I don't know if I can do that from one of your city commissioners.

Nobody tries to give professors gifts ever, just for the record.

Like we never confront these kinds of ethical dilapons.

This stuff and how do you what you're doing here is okay.

Some are under 25 and some are kind of that middle rule.

But what's private fish are now on the Gallup North?

I mean, yeah.

So numerical value.

Another thing that I thought of, Jim, and sort of as you guys are thinking about what this should look like.

Um there is a very different standard between working in the private sector and working for the government.

Yeah, especially in this organization in this town.

So as you would think about reforming any of this stuff, what is the public, what is the public's expectations?

What are they willing to consider?

Um I recognize that in this organization, people that come from the private sector and have never worked in government before don't get that all of a sudden you got very different standards now with this job, as opposed to your last job.

And I realize that for myself.

I used to make beer for a living for a small brewery and whitefish, and what our job was was to sell everybody on our beer.

And we gave it away, we gave t-shirts away, we gave everything we could, so people were like, oh, I want to buy you stuff.

That does not work in the city of Oswald.

You cannot approach your job that way.

So there is a ton of pressure on the staff from outside vendors who are taking the same approach, which is I'm gonna sell you.

And the staff need tools to be able to resist that, whether that's a vendor who applies for response to a request for proposals, and then all of a sudden a box of hats shows up at one of the plants with that vendor's thing on it, right?

When they're still being considered on in the proposals are being scrutinized and looked at.

The vendors trying to do what they need to do, we need to be able to have a line and give employees tools that they say, nope, we're not gonna we can't take that.

Those are the kinds of things I think that I would suggest you guys look at as you're contemplating this.

Okay.

Do you feel, Jim, that that is you have what you need to, since this is your provision?

Well, no, what I would also like, which would help me as maybe Jen.

If you have any thoughts on what has been problematic or any thoughts before I even get into this, I think I need to hear from the people that deal with this, and maybe just email me just a little quick shot if there's any particular numbers, letters that like this provision always creates trouble.

Yeah, I hate when someone comes to the one has worked well for us.

I mean, we've got two and a half pages for anything that you would which gives me a starting point.

So what I want to do is just say you guys establish what you think is the standard.

I think we can, if you look at that report, we put a few things that can give you a flavor for how we've handled the gift provision.

I think I would rather not have the education wag your dog of setting the policy.

As you think about your stuff, we certainly can be helpful for how we train on that.

Okay.

All right.

The last thing I just want to make sure so we have time, Greg, for you to give us the feedback on the training.

Is um in the number six.

Oh, I'm gonna send this to you, Jim, but I'm just highlighting in the other issues.

I'm giving you financial disclosures and post-employment service.

I'm gonna give Mark G and H and the ENF.

So anyway, I'll send around this updated memo with the video.

If you guys want to talk through any of these, like we just did with the give provision, I'm happy to do that.

Especially the conflict of interest provision, as Mike had indicated, that flows from the charter.

There was conflict provisions in place prior to the charter.

We've there's one in particular that I think has always been a very interesting provision that we have, and that's called our sole proprietor rule.

Mike, will you pull that code up?

And the conflict section is where it's uh 520.

F look at F.

That's a charter-based rule.

But what that does, if we have, and we've had this, people have applied to be on what used to be called a planning board and is now called a planning commission under the state law.

If they're a sole provider, say they're a civil engineer, and they get on the planning board.

This rule would not allow them to bring a project that they had been hired in a private capacity before the city at all.

And that has led to people who were otherwise qualified saying, I'm not going to volunteer for that board because then I can't do my business.

So those are the kinds of very specific things that in the past have been recognized as problems.

Rules put in place, and then having these consequences.

Okay.

And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

That's kind of for you guys to start figuring out is that the right policy.

Okay.

Um, okay.

Can I ask clarification real quick?

Who did you say was going to handle the financial disclosure and post-employment?

Um, so in that bottom list, I'll do ENF, Mark, I'll assign G and H, and then Jim will do I and J.

That work.

Yep.

Okay.

The financial disclosure is a charter.

We can walk you guys through how we implement that.

Um the post-employment is kind of like the revolving door concept.

You can't be working on a project from this for the city and then immediately turn around and work on the same project in the private sector.

We do get post-employment questions every once in a while.

And I think I might have even put a post-employment question or two in this in the report.

Oh, yeah.

I think over the years there's been suspicion that somebody was offered a bigger salary.

City and private sector.

And yeah, they were they were leveraging that role ahead of the city, and I think that there should there needs to be a time for it.

Yeah, comfort.

And so on that rule also, there's a standard if the employee is not going to work on things that they had been working on in the private sector, the rule doesn't apply to that.

So read those rules carefully because you can start to understand exactly how those rules are play play out.

Is would this be available on a Word document?

Just those sections.

I can put them in here.

I'll cut them in.

Is that what you mean?

Yeah, yeah.

So can I show you with a PDF sometimes?

I just like to do that.

Yeah, yeah.

I can show you a trick.

So you can download the entire code of ethics division as a word document.

Mike left, and I'll show you how to do that.

You want to go that true makes it easier to work.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I won't.

Oh, I see because you want to be able to edit in it.

No, okay, so for each section, even.

Yep.

So you can go to the code of ethics.

You guys following me?

See that download as a doc X.

You click that and it's gonna do it.

It's gonna tell you what do you want to do?

All a division four, and then you just click download, then you'll get a word document.

Okay.

Great.

Easier.

Yeah.

Okay.

Look at this, and then what happens from there?

So yeah, and go through it compare it to other versions, other cities, make suggestions, you know, write down questions for Greg, and then I think we need to schedule a meeting, I don't know, May or something, and maybe at that point that's when we'll all have the our homework done.

And then see my one comment would be is we look at other cities, look at templates.

I was doing that last year.

Yeah, yeah.

And we're so different.

It's just how do you unless you just redo the whole because the formats are different?

Yeah.

Use different phrases.

I mean, it maybe that you read it, you're like, it's basically fine.

I don't need to go out and do a ton of research.

That's what I'm saying.

And back when I used to write policies, once you had a starting point, you don't switch.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it can sometimes just be helpful to see.

Uh, are there things other cities include that we haven't thought to include?

I mean, you know, all the talking MSU is about everything AI, AI, AI.

And so I was reading this with an eye chart.

Like, are there places where AI transparency attribution, any of that?

I mean, it doesn't really come up in this, but I mean, as far as ethics go, that's like a major question.

So, like that might be something that I don't know, you know, just things that are ahead of this curve that maybe we haven't thought of, but if it's not broken, don't worry about it, don't be able to do that.

One thing that I did note in here, and I wrote it down as a question.

Nowhere in any of our policies do we talk about social media or that's getting to be such a big deal on confidentiality.

So can I just make a suggestion on both of those?

So um the city has for a very long time had a social media use.

We have a social media use policy.

Okay that talks about how employees can use social media in the workplace.

It talks about uh the interaction between their personal use of social media and their employment with the city.

Um those policies are adopted by the city manager as administrative orders, and we can send you to those and show you how to see those.

Those are internal operating policies, they've never been put in the code.

If an employee violates them, that is subject to discipline for violating city policy.

Those do not apply to elected officials because they're adopted by the city manager.

Um we also for uh quite a while now have an AI policy that was modeled off of other major cities who are out front on adopting policies.

It's not as comprehensive as maybe it would be now that we've kind of gone a year or two somewhere in there on implementing that policy, but it still seems to be working.

What it basically says is you can use AI in your workplace, but you gotta have the director approve your use of AI, and you need to use an AI system that's approved by IT.

Um we have standards in that policy for uh disclosing.

We have provisions and we're professional service agreements that say if a vendor's gonna use AI, they better tell us beforehand.

So we've implemented those kinds of things.

But those are all personal policy internal personnel.

Okay, gotcha.

So I was in 2035.

I guess just one thing I tossed out.

Do you want to have a number?

D just referring to the separate uh social media policy or something in there.

Um this is the hitting confidential information, keep everything confidential.

You can't let anything go.

I'm just wondering if that needs to be beefed up now with redominance of social media where you just refer to a the city shall maintain a separate policy.

So I guess what one thing I would ask you to consider is uh your instinct.

I appreciate that.

As you would think whether you should be putting something in the ethics code on that, be really careful.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Because by doing so, you're sort of are you implementing the structure of the charter and that it's commissioned as a legislative body and city manager as the executive?

And so without calling social media out and or AI out and the risk of revealing confidential information through those, are these provisions that are there broad enough and general enough that they would apply in a circumstance of wrongful use of social media or wrongful use of AI without having to say social media?

Are your standards already broad enough that it's a good idea?

Probably covers it.

Everything's confidential.

Which should by nature meaning cleaning social specify.

Were you taking notes on my assignments because I changed my mind about an assignment?

Do you care?

Or is it fine if I just have this in my doc?

If you can just state it on the record and then I just am changing my mind since Mark isn't here to benefit from these conversations, that in the other issues, he's gonna do E, and then I'm gonna do FG and H.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, okay.

So if we are okay with this right now, and I'll send a follow-up with a kind of notes on what we've decided and how we're gonna proceed.

Greg, do you want to talk to us in our last 15 or so minutes about the feedback from the feedback from the city's ethics program?

Yeah, and I want to like invite Jen and Mike to weigh in on this also.

So as with the annual training program, um we want to make it effective and to be able to communicate with employees and have employees and appointed officials, excuse me, have a solid understanding of the basic principles of what the code does, and that's the purpose of the charter requirement to train annually is to keep saying what the standards are, why it exists.

We have onboarding for new employees, um, where they have to go through the ethics onboarding program, and then we introduce employees again to the ethics program through the annual training.

Um we have taken an opportunity to take and to evaluate the efficacy of the program, and so um we know that we have been have gone away from like talking head lecture series, and now what we have is the ethics team, which is employees from around the organization come together, develop the curriculum, pass it on to you guys to approve, then employees from around the organization deploy it, and so we have people who are uh not ethics professionals, just employees training their colleagues for the boards.

We have the staff liaisons training the boards in conjunction with the board chair, and so we've been taking this opportunity from last fall's training for both the employees and the boards to evaluate is it a good idea?

Are we doing the right thing?

And so we've had a conversation with all the trainers.

Um we went to the management team, which is I don't know, 50 to 75 people who are supervisory responsibilities, ask them the same question.

I asked the director team, which is 12 or 13 of us about feedback that they and ideas that they had about how we could make it more effective.

So in April, I think we have another meeting with the ethics with like the core team, which is Jen and Mike and uh director Tozer from HR and Julie, just some folks that are just a few of us, a handful of us, to take a look at all that feedback, then come up with some new ways to deploy the training, and that could be that could make it more effective for people to learn from and so I just wanted you guys to know that we're in that process of doing that.

Um then what you will then see is when we come up with a new curriculum and a new way to deploy that annual ethics training, we'll tell you about it in the fall when we come back with that program.

We'll tell you about it in the fall when we come back with that program.

We want to involve all the trainers in that.

Um after this core team gets together and comes up with new ideas, we want to talk to the trainers.

I I'm not we're not gonna get rid of that sort of integrated approach where employees are also able to train.

We just want to give them some better tools to do things to do the training with.

So we're I just wanted you to know that we're in that process.

You guys have anything that any revelations?

I do have um so related to the board member training.

Um so I've talked with some of our um board liaisons related to how the trainings have worked out.

This year's training we ran into kind of a unique situation that will only be unique for about once every five years.

So the way our consolidated advisory boards term limits combined with the term expiration being the end of the year worked out.

We typically do the board trainings in November or December.

For some of our boards, we were term limiting out half of their board members in December.

So we pushed that training into January this year to incorporate the new board members.

One of the things that it brought to light very quickly was we don't have a really robust ethics training at the onboarding stage of board members.

So in an attempt to avoid people getting appointed and waiting nearly a year before they have their official ethics training.

We did this change for for this round, and then I had reached out with the local government center uh to see what they would charge using their resources to put together uh an option for us for um online as an onboarding as a stopgap measure for anybody who comes on mid-term or at long, like where there's gonna be a long window of time prior to the sit-down in-person trainings.

Um, so that's all in our budget proposal out of the clerk's office for for this next fiscal year.

Uh we have their quotes, um, some of the other uh tools that we'll discuss in this group may leverage some assets and resources that they have available that would be beyond what myself and the deputy clerk can do just with our limits of two people.

Um so in addition to our team talking, we're also seeing where we can use the local government center as is kind of a multiplying factor for our ability to get this out there and function with the with the scenarios, especially in the boards, given that they work with every community in Montana, they work with water districts, they work with entities that don't have the structure of Bozeman's boards that they may see some issues that we typically don't, but it would be a good scenario to highlight.

So we're we're looking at that pending our um budget approval process.

Uh if it's any help, I at one time we had the online training, and I thought it was probably more comprehensive, dealt with more issues, and then we went to training where training was done here, and board members and commissioners would come in here, you'd probably have 25 or 30 in a room, but you had some at that time more people serving on boards, and they'd give you two or three nights, and you could come to this group.

But a lot of the questions were pertaining to somebody wants to do landscaping, or you know, you'd have the development related, and the questions weren't really relevant for the police commission.

And then we went to the smaller where you're coming in, and it just I didn't think was as comprehensive.

Use the three or four examples.

Okay, what happens if somebody does this, that I mean, they were short and sweet.

So I wouldn't, I did kind of like the online, and I think because it was really comprehensive, and you'd have questions in any scenario, and then you'd have to answer questions, and uh you didn't have to schedule a meeting to do it, so it makes sense for onboarding.

Umboarding could be helpful.

We I want to be conscious that calling board members in on nights that they're not accustomed to was a big problem.

Right.

Like board members were not happy that they had set aside once or twice in month office of one night, and then all of a sudden they had an additional obligation.

Um part of the feedback that we have been getting is exactly what you're saying is let's do some more non-symbols stuff about what the code requires instead of just like jumping on the scenarios.

There's certainly sort of competing feedback about the scenario work.

Some people like that because it develops conversation, and people can talk about different perspectives on an issue.

Um, and we want to encourage people to have those conversations.

Um we've developed the scenarios to like make things look pretty great.

So we got a lot of feedback, and we're gonna try to sort of come up with something that's properly.

What I'm hesitant to do is have an online training hold for employees or officials without something more as in person for a number of reasons.

One is that it doesn't get people talking, it doesn't get people to meet somebody that never met before here in a different department's perspective, and to keep that fresh is a lot of work.

I like the idea of like here's a program we established enough symbols for new employees, here's the program we establish enough symbols for new board members.

Take that look you come in, that's that's a baseline, and then we do the annual training sort of more learned kind of button to Greg's point, just anecdotally.

When I first started, we were still utilizing the online onboarding for board members pre-consolidation when we still had 40 boards.

We would assign that we would send them a link, and one of the questions was the city of Bozeman recently adopted, and at that point it was seven years old.

And they and they were like, I would get emails.

I'm in the middle of this quiz, and it's asking me about recently and so yeah, keeping it fresh, keeping it updated, that's where we're looking to ask for outside assistance.

Okay.

Anyone have anything to add to the update on the training situation?

Okay, is there our next item is a German out to call for any more public comment on anything?

Okay.

Um the other thing that I would just say if you guys want to get back together in May, just say that, and we can ask Julie Send poll, all these dates that may work.

Yeah, and I don't know.

I mean, this may make sense.

I don't want to wait too long because I feel like we'll lose the thread of this conversation.

Well, that's the problem, I have is it you get in and get current and then you wait too long?

Yeah.

I mean, let's say May, and even if we're not completely done, at least we can do more of this together.

So, okay, yeah.

So I make a motion that we get together in May at a dating section of both staff and the board members.

I second that emotion.

I mean the motion.

Now I'm just thinking of like Smoky Rabbits.

Um, if there is no further business today, I will call.

Does anyone want to move that the we adjourn?

So move.

I second it.

Bam, adjourned.

Thanks, Greg.