March thirtieth, twenty twenty six Board of Ethics meeting to what do I call it to?

Order.

Okay, although.

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

You can join this meeting via video conference, um uh accessing that information from the City of Bozeman Board of Ethics web page or via phone call.

Um is there anyone online today?

Yeah, okay.

All right, today um item B on our agenda is a special presentation.

We will be doing an uh ethics mock hearing, and Jen Gatari will introduce that.

Yeah, I think before before Jen jumps off, I think what we're gonna do is just a few slides to sort of orient the board to your rules related to conducting a hearing that's based on a complaint.

Um and then once that happens, then it's all you right to treat this as if you have a real complaint in front of you.

Um so gaveling it in, uh introducing yourselves, running the process.

I we gave you a handout that has a suggested process for how the the hearing would run.

So I want to thank all these guys because they put a bunch of time in.

And I saw through one of the rehearsals, not a dress rehearsal, but now I'm impressed.

And so they're gonna have fun.

I hope you guys do too, but at the same time we want to make sure this is an experience that you can then draw on at some point in the future if when you have a real complaint that you have to hear.

So give it over, Jen.

And thanks to Jen, she kind of was the producer of orchestrated.

Director.

Director, director, stage hand.

Yeah, all the other stuff that comes with it.

Did you do wardrobe also?

No, that was left to the artist.

That was left to the artist.

Okay.

Yeah, who's the producer for this?

Executive producer, you know, you're the director.

I wore many hats.

Or or TRS.

I don't know.

Okay, are you ready, Greg?

Okay, um, so just to give you an overview of um the lay of the land before jumping into the ethics hearing, turning your attention to section two point zero three six hundred A three.

This section of our code delineates the board's duties and powers, and one of them explicitly states that uh you have the ability to conduct ethics hearings.

Six forty, um, which we'll go over in more detail is the section that governs procedures for hearing complaints.

And then finally, resolution twenty twenty-four oh one, which the board passed um in twenty twenty-four.

The appendix to that are the uh hearing rules of procedure.

So as a um recap, section two point zero three six forty sets forth all of the steps for the filing of a complaint.

Um the main steps are there needs to be a complaint, a response, and a preliminary analysis before the board ever steps in.

Uh the clerk is responsible for acknowledging receipt and forwarding all documents to all of the members of the board as well as to the parties and to the city attorney's office.

Looking at the complaint, any person can file a complaint and it must be filed with the city clerk.

The person does not have to live in city limits.

They do not have to live in the county, they just have to be a named person.

It cannot be anonymous.

And that person is identified in this procedure as the respondent, right?

So oftentimes in a criminal proceeding, you'll hear the word defendant, but this is not actually a criminal proceeding.

So we use the term respondent, which is what is typically used in civil proceedings in court.

So the complainant or the person who's filing the complaint has to specifically say what section of the code they think has been violated.

So they can't just throw out something randomly.

They have to make a specific point to something specifically in the complaint.

And then additionally, they have to include a statement of facts supporting their claim.

They can include in their statement of facts any physical evidence.

And the code defines physical evidence as documents, still removing images, audio or video.

So they're not obligated to include evidence.

And basically the complaint must be filed within one year that the complainant knew or should have known of the alleged violation.

So that's there's a little bit of distinguishing there where it's not from the date of when it may have occurred, but when the complainant basically knew or should have known that that it had occurred.

Once the complaint is filed, within five working days, the clerk must acknowledge receipt of the complaint and then forward that on to the board, the city attorney, and the respondent.

Once that's forwarded on, the time starts ticking for the respondent to submit an answer or a response.

So it must be filed 20 days from receiving the complaint, and likewise must contain an unsworn declaration.

And then again, the city clerk is responsible for forwarding the response on, so they'd forward it back to the complainant to all the members of the board and to the city attorney.