Oh, every planning parts.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks everybody for being here.

Um in the recently returned to cold weather.

Um I will go ahead and call the meeting to order.

All right.

First item is to approve the minutes from January 15.

Does anybody have any comments or changes during claiming uh related to the meeting minutes?

Can I make a motion to approve?

Okay, I'll second.

Please.

All right.

Uh was approving the minutes.

Great.

Okay.

Um I think you can all see, I don't know if we can scroll down to see this the agenda, but um does anybody have any changes they'd like to make to the order for today?

I'm just wondering about this for member whose terms expired on April 30th, 2025.

Oh, yeah, it should be 2026.

Oh, okay.

So that's yeah, perfect deal.

Yeah, I will I will update about 2026.

Not 2025.

All right.

Um okay.

Well, then in that case we can move on to reports or inquiries from the city attorney.

Thank you, Mr.

Jarrett.

Um nothing specific that has come my direction.

Um I would maybe just talk with you briefly about um something that came before the city council last night.

It was um mildly interesting to me, um, partly from an ethics perspective and um in case anybody was watching uh last night, didn't have anything better to do.

Um just wanted to give you a little um review of of that topic that came up.

There was in open comment on the first speaker, and you can watch it yourself if you care to um who um is on a city board or commission, um, though she did not identify herself that way.

Um, but she was referencing um the mayor's recent training of board and commission members.

And the topic that she was addressing with the council was um in their last business meeting, they had taken a vote on um supporting some legal action um related to ongoing ongoing immigration enforcement.

It was a split vote that got a fair amount of attention and um and agree or disagree with the substance, and obviously the the speaker disagreed with what the council um approved.

Um the main reason I'm I'm just bringing it up for you is that the suggestion by the speaker was that um based on the mayor's comments during the board and commission training, um she believed that the council members had violated their oath of office and um may have not maybe suggesting that they committed ethics violations in supporting legal action in supporting what they did through this particular action.

Um so I think just at a minimum, I I would just comment to you that if if you happen to be watching or this otherwise comes to your attention.

My take of that situation is that it certainly doesn't raise a question of ethics again, agree or disagree with what the council did.

Um it doesn't create an ethics question um that needs to be um addressed or for that matter an oath of office, but those things are side issues, I guess.

Um I'm still maybe thinking a little bit about how to how to have a conversation with um this individual to either as we often do um offer up the link, the form if somebody wants to make it ethics um charge against somebody.

Of course, I have the right to do that if she really believes that there is an ethics violation that should be considered by this body, then formalize it and we'll sort through it.

Um it was also a little bit troubling to me that it um attempted to reference the mayor's training and really misquoted, misunderstood some comments um by the mayor, and then sort of made a leap to to be then sort of making uh a charge of impropriety or um an ethics violation by the city council members.

So um just wanted to share that piece with you.

I think part of this report process is for me to just kind of talk through with you situations where claims, suggestions, allegations of unethical conduct gets sort of thrown around, and how um I in my position might deal with that, including the option of formalizing it and bringing it to this body, and happy to take any questions or comments or conversations.

Did she think that the council had violated?

It it was it was not that specific.

It was more of kind of yeah, as as you probably know when people kind of get on a roll of the allegations, right?

Impropriety violating oath of office, ethics, like sort of all gets lumped together, okay.

But some of those kinds of allegations, particularly in public matter more to us, right?

Um not that we respond to all of them, of course, but any time that I hear from people um in a some level of a position of authority, um, and sometimes just the public.

When I hear them using the term ethics violation, I pay closer attention to those things and try to figure out how to follow up and whether to make sure somebody understands that there's a formal way of exploring that, bringing that claim and having a real body address that topic instead of just throwing it out into the public sphere.

You know, I uh find that interesting because I remember that meeting that we had, and you know, what and you know what we're supposed to do and not do and whatnot.

And I I did find it interesting that I don't know if it was that night or it was earlier that day, I did not know it.

That in my opinion, the mayor had kind of taken a position with regard to that issue.

I I may not have this correct, I would stand to be corrected, but you know, and and clearly did it as the mayor.

I'm not sure what restrictions she has on her, but having just sat through this ethics training, um clearly one listening to her would think that that was the city of Rochester's position, and then I think that segued into her um the mayor going out to um Washington DC to espouse, and that's still unclear to me whether it's her position or the city of Rochester's position.

But I I remember just having just sat through that and then hearing this right after that.

I it was either that evening or it was the next morning, and I I sent the mayor a note, right?