Thanks everybody for being here in December.

I will go ahead and call the meeting to order.

We don't have a lot on the agenda today.

We kind of have some time for open discussion as we lead into next year.

So I'll just jump in.

The first thing is to approve the minutes from our last meeting, which was October 16.

Comment on that?

Yes, that's really.

I think there might be a typo.

Okay.

So on the first part for the sixth A, it says I've none and then result approved.

I think no I think defining the denying.

Yes.

And then just looking to see if sorry, you said six.

Ah, yeah.

Yeah, we have a mover and a secondary and no eyes and then approved.

Yeah, that's probably a table.

Oh, I for sure.

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah, you catch thanks.

Um anything else?

Great.

So I assume we could move to just amend those and approve them as amended or something along those lines, everybody.

Okay.

I'll make a motion to after the meeting that's with that small time.

Okay.

Thank you.

All those in favor.

I great.

As always, thanks, Jeremy, for preparing those.

Okay, thanks for catching that.

Um all right, great.

Um moving on.

Our second order of business is to welcome a new member.

So we have um Nick Nedland.

You know I make usually.

Nick is great.

Okay, awesome.

Well, uh, Nick's a new member, um, filling the unexpired term from Christine.

Uh looks like his term will expire April 2028.

So be here for a couple of years and sleep longer if you decide to stick around.

Great.

So um welcome and thanks for being here.

Did you want to say anything so much?

Yeah.

Um, no, I wanted to uh participate in something.

Uh you know, and so when it came across, uh I am uh I'm in human resources, um director of people and culture, so uh ethics kind of was right in that line of things that I uh do on a daily basis, whether it's um you know investigations or uh just kind of looking out for the best interest of our employees.

So it uh you know I was very excited when I read about it.

I'm excited to see what it's all about and participate and uh the best way I can.

Great.

Well, glad maybe that's that's how some of us got involved too.

I think it's just wanting to be involved in something.

So thanks for taking the time and joining.

Super.

All right.

Um well, moving on.

We have an agenda.

I don't have any changes I wanted to make.

I assume is everybody okay with the order of the agenda as written.

Any questions?

Yeah, I guess we were handed a section two definitions and paper on it.

And I've got a couple of comments on terms of some shelving and other clarification.

Okay, um are you going to uh yeah?

Can we that sounds like that would fit in with the 2026 priorities discussion?

If it's about the yeah, yeah.

I'm guessing there's only gonna take a handful of minutes.

Okay, yeah, let's let's talk about it when we get to the business setting.

I didn't know where you wanted as flat as sure.

Yeah, it's important, but it's not yeah, top of list up.

Okay, yep, that's that sounds good to me.

Great.

Um, let's start with reports and inquiries.

I will uh hand it over to the city attorney for that part.

Thank you, Mr.

Jair.

Um we had no new um inquiries to my office since the last meeting.

Um one thing that I would mention, put on your radar, the mayor's office did recently reach out to my office to schedule the annual um board and commission member training.

Um, I think it's somewhat focused on new members, but I believe that everybody has sent an invitation, you're welcome to attend that annual training as many times as you want.

Sometimes it is a good ref uh refresher.

It's really structured as half of the presentation is the mayor talking about some of the history related to boards and commissions, basic structure of the importance of the boards and commission's work um to the city council and the city organization as a whole, and then I have part of that time frame where I talk about a mix of um legal or legal adjacent topics like open mining law, um ethics gifting um things like that.

Um so we don't recall if we're doing it in person or by teams, but I think both will likely be an option.

Um we tend to do um a day where we're presenting to the board and commission members as well as a day that we are presenting to the staff liaisons, people like Jovi who facilitate all of the board and commission work.

of um legal or legal adjacent topics like open mining law um ethics gifting um things like that um so we don't recall if we're doing it in person or by teams but i think both will likely be an option um we tend to do um a day where we're presenting to the board and commission members as well as a day that we are presenting to the staff liaisons people like jobie who facilitate all of the board and commission work um so it's a good conversation um particularly for sure those of you who are new will get that invitation coming from the mayor's office um i believe we also record those uh those trainings so for some reason it doesn't work for your schedule um that's an option for um and if anyone happens to have any one-off questions you're always welcome to call us to that as well so that will be like mid-January or so great that's all I have Mr.

Chair awesome thank you and and Nick I don't know if you um have watched past meetings or anything but just the the general flow is kind of you know usually convene and then the city attorney can provide updates sometimes inquiries come to his office about general topics of ethics or or specific instances that may have happened um we have time for open comment which usually there isn't any but for we do have that um and then uh typically if we have a complaint that comes in we'll we'll discuss that um and then other other business that may come up about past issues so that's kind of a flow of a normal meeting so I'll move on to the open comment period I'm guessing we don't have any open comment uh participants today so um just for some background this this year we spent some time coming up with language that um the chair can read at the beginning of open comment um we wanted to make sure that posts in attendance knew that um there's a formal complaint process and then we wanted to avoid somebody you know making a complaint during open comment and even naming a complaint it um the official complaints kind of have to go throughout the form and be signed um for I think city charter or city code reasons and also um privacy law reasons you probably know more about that stuff than I do um so I'm gonna skip that today but we have it in the agenda and if somebody was here looking to talk then we would read that um just to kind of set the ground rules Mr.

Chair could I just feed back on that um just for those of you who are part of that discussion who spent a fair amount of time on it um very intentional and thoughtful um the police policy oversight commission recently had um some discussion on kind of the same topic a question of um if somebody from the public appears in open comment and wants to lodge a complaint to the professional standards manager what should that look like was just able to share with them the language that this group crafted and gives them a good start on on how to handle that piece how to um not discourage complaints of course but send them in the most appropriate direction and be sensitive to data practices questions so appreciate the work that this group did that's good it's nice to hear that that was able to be repurposed as a reference at least sorry for another group that's awesome.

Okay um well moving on uh we don't have any unfinished business so our one item of new business um was kind of a catch-all that I added on here um just to make space for us to kind of talk about an outline what we should include on the agenda for 2026.

So obviously any complaints that come in will be on the agenda as they're as they received and we will um discuss those and triage them as appropriate um but this year you know we spend a lot of time on the language program comments we also had some discussion about the um code of ethics and whether any changes should be suggested there you obviously can't change that but you can we can make recommendations to the council if we feel that changes could be beneficial um or anything else that um that somebody might want to make a priority for next year uh in terms of other ways that we can support the city and um ethical practices so um that's a little bit of a preamble and then I will open it up um it sounds like Bob has one area of discussion so if you want to kick it off that's that's for yes I've stapled my paper together as a full of ordinance page and it comes down to some more clarification so if you wanted to flip over to you see at the bottom section two dash 16 3 and then we're going to scan up further up a couple of housekeeping or not really just going to pull the reports or whatever they use low case uh for uh common counsel and mayor uh in describing that I think they would an official office in terms of ask you on the pause for just a second how much of a pain would it be take a um then some yeah we could project that that would be nice to bring that on here they have it online too if that's easier but I think yeah that would be great to have a common reference yeah just want to make sure I can

if you wanted to flip over till you see at the bottom section two dash 16 3 and then we're going to scan up further up a couple of housekeeping or not really just going up till the stops or whatever they use low case uh for uh common council a mayor um in describing that i think they would is an official office in terms of i ask you on the pause for just a second how much of a pain would it be to get um well and then some then yeah we could project that that would be nice to bring that one here yeah they have it online too if that's easier but yeah that would be great to have a common reference yeah just want to make sure I can follow your suggestions okay but it's all written and if you don't have that page of definitions or exceptions okay would you get that reference once more please the specific number as part of section two dash sixteen dash one thank you and about halfway through it can I can just connect to oh um I'm not but I could hear uh what's the number question seven two dot one eight yeah dot nine dot two five two well can I can do this one the other one is one seven two dot two seven okay dot one six nine yeah dot two six there's internal guests so okay yeah we're gonna guess guess yeah yeah turn it with that two one six two six that's not working for me sorry within the bad age I have a paper gap here if you look okay sure thanks it kind of all yeah we can still search for electronically no we're just trying to get it up on the screen i have it here but till we find it it's missing well i can read a couple of these points and they're just more housekeeping it reads appointing authority means the common counsel my comment and the mayor and other person who appoints a person to a public position my comment is that uh the word uh common council should be capitalized because it is an important portion of the of the city as is the word mayor it's mayor is printed here in Florida case sure mayor should be identified for that and then we move down to boards meets ethical practice and board they should be capitalized at the same thing because the official board body of the city sure okay and then we come down to more public body means a common council in any city agency now there's that's where it gets a little icky so into the definition for the ethics they refer to the state statute and then essentially it's an entity like for example housing um although most of you don't know that the library and the parks or they actually they're part of the city but they're independent for budgetering and all that type of things and they should be noted in terms of their importance relative to a cat capitalization.

So you're saying city agency should be capitalized as well or yes okay and then let me describe the city city agency that's where it kind of gets you know what is a city agency right I think we need the couple examples we could use and say cities housing authority you could use the fire protection police quota working with other cities in communities and city um we still have role cog where people get it atgether but I think it's important enough to to maybe list the definitions add one for city agency what's that in the list of definitions add one for city agency but that would be a way to do it sure yeah I think that could clarify because you read it and you said what is this you know uh the state statute on the this particular thing actually identifies that thing whether you want to use their particular language or our own okay but that definitely needs to be a definition because that's important in your document there um because only came across this is city agency what's you know yeah

In the list of definitions, add one for city agency.

Well, that would be a way to do it.

Sure.

Yeah, I think that could clarify because you read it, you said what is this, you know.

Uh the state statute on this particular thing actually identifies things whether you want to use your particular language for our own.

Okay.

But that definitely needs to be a definition because that's important publicing in your document there.

Yeah.

Um because I only came across this city agency.

What's you know, yeah, just another fancy term or there's different types of things too, right?

And there's yeah, okay.

Okay.

I may have one more thing to get out of here.

This couldn't be a little case the boards are organized as follows, but then I came down to one of the things that they have what 11 points.

They used to cooperate with uh so often the tourist stage to work with tends to suggest and that we're both in it is cooperate, tends to say that one is bigger dog and lower dog kind of thing.

But we're just two mixed.

Sorry, just to make sure I'm in the same place.

Is it two six-seven E11?

Yeah, the levered on the bottom to work with it tends to say that you know we're gonna work on this together rather than say we're gonna tell you what to do kind of thing.

Uh so right now it says to co this is the board has the following powers right now.

It says to cooperate with the human resources department in the design of a few things.

So they send out probably suggesting then.

And that's um that's right.

In terms of changing the end to first together, um I can collaborate with or work in tandem with.

Sure.

So just change it to and probably more of an equal footing, I guess, rather than right a subordinate.

Okay.

Yeah.

And having manage citizens for years, it's it's the softer approach and it's nicer, even if it's just kind of minuscule.

Yeah, I'm a fan of the word collaborate and those types of situations where you have different because they're two separate entities coming together for a common goal.

Okay.

But yes.

Okay, great.

Well, those are, yeah, thanks for taking a that's a close look at that stuff.

So I think that would be great to um I I didn't think you had it in our paper just to use it for paper planes, you know.

Yeah, absolutely.

I actually read it.

Great.

Um, okay.

Well, that's it.

That's a good kickoff for yeah, for some priorities for next year.

So um I've never, since I've been on the board, we've never made a formal recommendation, I don't think, to the capital for a code change.

Is the procedure for that?

Do we basically draft the report and then forward that on?

Like looking at Mississippi attorney for guidance on this.

Probably could could be part of the report, or could just be a separate recommendation if we think that there are some um language changes, adjustments, edits to the ordinance that we would be recommending that that could be um a one-off recommendation starting with a um uh a written report recommendation to the council.

Okay, yeah.

I would think that would make more sense than putting it in the annual report.

I mean, we try to summarize everything, but this field that kind of its own self-contained item.

So we need a little bit of work to come up with the definition of city agency.

So I don't know that we have it polished enough to send today.

If you go to state static, I think it defines that they describe that like um two communities working together and co-sharing like uh law enforcement and other types of activities.

That's the the definition that they use is only about two cents thing, but it's pretty sure pretty detailed for two sentence.

Cool.

Well, yeah, that sounds good.

So maybe maybe the first thing we should cue up for our next meeting would be uh just an agenda item to review some proposed language and then finalize a memo to send to the council for review.

Does that work for everybody?

And we know it's legal because yeah, the state has it in their yeah, yeah.

I think that sounds great.

That's less work for us that come over something from scratch.

So if you just have that uh um so the city agency one thousand two-161.

Uh these are two-162.

And then the uh the points were two, six, seven, e11.

Two sixty seven and e11.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Um yeah, I mean, I'm happy to take a crack at it too.

I know the city staff are often pretty busy, but whatever makes the most sense unit for so in these types of situations then I guess quick questions.

Uh is this something that we would work on over the next month and then like send ahead of time to be put on the agenda, we can review them together and then craft the final version.

Yeah, I think that's typically what we would do.

We would we would come into the next meeting with something drafted, but um any of us, I think could be free to work on and often we collaborate with the city attorney and in their office or the administrator to okay, come up with some language.

Um we've never really taken on a huge project that needed like a subcommittee or anything.

Yeah, um, typically small stuff like this.

So um, but if you're interested in in getting your feedback then, I will try and not put it then.

Do I when I send that to you?

Or yeah, so you could send to Jody and then yeah, we would review and um if there's some appropriate feedback ahead of time, we would provide that, otherwise we provide it to the body at the next meeting and bring it back through.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's helpful.

You can download um our city ordinances are on the website.

Yep, I've read through them.

I just don't add it in.

So you do have the ability to download one section, all of it, multiple sections, and then you can make your changes there.

Cool.

I need to find her, it looks like it's done, but at least binder to the next one.

So I have all my stuff.

I don't know, it's the like electronic, but yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, I like something to write on too, obviously.

So that's the both worlds.

Yep.

Great.

Okay, well, thanks.

Uh that's that's a great thing to get us started for next year.

Um, are there any other topics that that folks would like to prioritize things that feel like we could be doing better as a body or things that we could recommend or help with the city?

Um I know one ongoing one that we've been dealing with for a while, is um we've had various iterations of the conflate form to try to reduce the number of kind of spurious complaints.

We get a lot of complaints that come in that are, you know, my neighbor is leaving their trash cans out or they're not turning their weeds or something, which is well intentioned, obviously, but not really an ethics complaint.

So um just regular information.

Typically, when we get those, the city staff will kind of route them to the correct department immediately, and then we review them and the next meeting.

Um but we've taken some steps to try to reduce the number of those that come in.

It feels like it's been a little better this year.

I think we haven't had quite as many as in the past.

Um the city's updating to their website.

I think that helped get us off the top Google result if you searched Rochester complaint.

That used to be the first thing that would pop up.

So but anything else that that folks are interested in for next year.

Yeah, Mr.

Chair, this might be a small thing, but maybe at some point an update from our 311 um friends uh if they have any commentary on inquiries through the city 311 system that I wrote to ethical practices board or ethics issues or the ordinance, um, maybe just an update from them what they're seeing, uh maybe helpful, whether that's halfway through 26 or uh at your plenty or um would likely be quick, but something I think that would be a great idea.

Yep.

Was that this year that they that we worked with them kind of on that was when they launched the new um features?

Chester, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I think so.

And maybe remember early in the year or um okay.

It was in 25 sometime and some discussion about it.

Yeah, very well they're able to pull some interesting data and kind of what people have asked about and how that's been routed and everything.

So it's sort of interested in a recap on that.

Great.

Okay.

Um sounds like there's nothing else.

So our last item of business is um just a review of meeting dates for 2026.

Uh so our typical practice has been to try to meet on the third Thursday of every month.

Um as much as possible in this room at 1030.

That usually has worked pretty well for everybody.

Um so um Jody has hopefully provided the table of all of those dates for next year.

I don't know if everybody had a chance to look at that.

Um, I don't know that we need to go through those exhaustively right now, but in general, is that a good time and date for everybody still?

Sure.

Um and then if there's nothing on the agenda, we just give the novel subject on meeting, right?

Yeah, yeah, we sometimes cancel if there's nothing.

There's nothing pressing.

So I think for January we'll we'll keep that one because we'll have an item to discuss.

Um, and then we can look at February at that time and see where we're at.

Mr.

Chair, just on the meetings topic, maybe just a friendly reminder.

This has been a point of discussion with a number of other boards and commissions.

Just if you would, I think most of you do this already as a courtesy.

If you know that you need to miss a meeting, um, just relaying that to Jody, um, who will relay it that to the chair.

And in addition to the question of quorum and um knowing who's going to be there, it can become important, sort of noting excused versus unexcused absences.

That's the point that has kind of gotten some discussion with other boards and commissions.

Um, and of course, not getting into your business, but if you can if you need to miss and can just provide a very brief explanation for why you're missing that is helpful.

Um, what we've been doing with other boards and commissions is that the chair makes the initial determination of whether it's an excuse versus unexcused absence, subject to approval by the body when you reviewed a minutes.

If there's some question or concern about whether something really should have been excused or not, the body can review that and make a decision.

Not trying to make it more complicated, but just mostly a friendly reminder.

If you need to miss, of course, understand that, just communicate it to Jody.

Yeah, I think the main thing is just to make sure we never come into a situation where we thought we would have a quorum and everybody took the time to come in, and then we didn't so um four is our quorum.

I assume where we don't have anything that needs a two-thirds or anything like that.

Okay, ask this.

Just a curiosity.

Um what are the kinds of things that would be relegated to an unexcuse absence if they had been noticeable?

Yeah.

Well, with that last qualifier, if notice is given, that that's fair.

Um I suppose, just hypothetically, if you if somebody were to give notice and um just give an unreasonable explanation for why anyone's not going to be here.

I just got a better sitting at the North Star.

Yeah.

That last meeting was annoying to me, and I got much regular board of appeals.

It is a third question, and I I think the main thing is just the sort of no-call, no show situations, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I don't anticipate uh denying or not approving anyone's absence request.

It makes me feel a little bit like a principal or something.

If it's covered by PFML, you know, it's probably excused.

Let's go that route because that covers everything.

Yeah.

Super okay could I ask one question?

I guess one more minute.

Um what are the sources of um is it just that one complaint form that we receive inquiries from, or they're yeah, I know it's yeah, 2025 and the 26, and there's um right, there's a lot of things in the media and social media and that aspect that yeah may garner attention from time to time is uh the responsibility of this body to take like general concerns and ask questions, or do we focus solely on like official complaints submitted to the city?

That's a really good question.

Um, I'll give my read on that and then if the city attorney wants to add anything.

But um 2169 is kind of the key part of the charter that deals with this.

Um essentially most of our complaints come in through the complaint form.

The the statute says that complaints or requests for ethics of things have to come in writing and be signed, and the way that we do that is through the online complaint form.

If somebody handed me a complaint that was signed on paper, you know, I assume that would constitute a formal complaint as well.

The other thing is um a board member or anybody on the board that kind of learns of a circumstance or situation is how it's written that appears to violate um an ethics concern.

Um we also have to treat that as a complaint.

So if for example, you discovered through some process that um a member of the city council appeared to be you know doing something that was clearly improper, like with a financial conflict of interest, then I think per the per the charter um you would also have the obligation to raise that as a complaint for the board to consider.

I think that's true for all of the board members.

Um that's as far as I understand it, those are kind of the two classier things that constitute a complaint or a something that we would have to treat as a complaint.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

Anything that I'm missing in that.

Well, I think that that was a good explanation and just an understanding that of course things that come to our direction or kind of back to the 3-1-1 process um question.

Um just assuring that people are given the right direction and opportunities, every opportunity um as possible to know how to file a complaint, what the process is and um facilitate that.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, we really try to make sure that people, even if what they're raising doesn't constitute an ethics complaint, we want them to feel heard and directed and acknowledged and and put in touch with somebody who can address, you know, because it may be really important to them, even if it's not a conflict of interest.

So I would say um reaching out to the city attorney's office is always appropriate to get their opinion and guidance too on whether something falls under that or not.

Um if there's you know, because like you said, things come up that could fall into gray area, especially these days.

So yeah, good question.

Yep.

Great.

All right.

Well, if there's nothing else, that's everything on the agenda.

So I think we can uh go ahead and adjourn.

Thanks to everybody for coming.

Oh, question.

Yeah, yeah.

Now that printing I didn't maybe is gonna is gonna bear up a little bit more than what has been before.

It would have been nice when I first came on the board if they would have had that first shift amendment.

It seemed like we backdoored into that to the activity, you know, was there, but it didn't really exist, you know, it was just a bunch of you know talk, but it hadn't been put in place.

It's important, I think, for anybody in the future type of thing as they further develop with a mayor.

Their process was that person, you know, in terms of being on the board, you're going to be required to be mandatory to at least 10 X session, one session, two session of that training program.

So they have a sense of it going in rather than coming into this board, no basis of whatever the contact to say, well, where did this come from?

Where does come from?

Yeah.

So I think it helps the new person that would come on the board.

And also the training thing that says, well, could this maybe something we might see and we make sure we need to address it.

Yeah.

As we make our presentation to the new the newbies.

Yeah, yeah.

That makes sense.

Yeah, we we typically do a presentation in May when the new um newly appointed board members are here that kind of covers ethics specific stuff.

And it sounds like the mayor's the thing in January is a little bit more general, but it would be good to let folks know about that.

It's a little it would be nice if that lined up time-wise also so if we kind of get it all in one, but um they can record one of our sessions and then they share available to the new candidate potentially, give them a sense of what they're going.

Yeah, getting into that's a good question.

I don't are those recorded and available outside of the actual sessions or for folks that are just joining the summer.

I believe so.

Okay, we'll we'll double check that.

Yeah, that would be something that would be nice for us to share with with new members or applicants, even if they're interested.

Yeah.

Or our last uh, I think probably was around May, or that we did kind of go over in general.

I think I think uh uh the attorney did that little PowerPoint says yeah when all the work does.

Yeah, might be more than beneficial.

All right.

Great.

Okay, thanks everybody.

Have a great new year's and holidays, and uh we will see you all in J.

Thank you.

Thanks all thank you.