here in the

This.

Present!

All right.

Let's restart the 30 seconds and restart our live video stream.

Good evening. Welcome to the Monday, February 24, 2025 at 5.34 p.m. Sacramento Ethics

Commission's meeting. The meeting is now called to order. Will the clerk please call the

roll to establish a forum? Thank you chair. Vice Chair Lafaso. Here. Member Adams is absence.

Member Velasquez. Present. Member Emory. Present. And Chair Eng. Here. Thank you. We have

a call. I would like to remind members of the public that if you would like to speak on an agenda

item, please turn in a speaker's slip when the item begins. You will have two minutes to speak

once you are called on. After the first speaker, we will no longer accept speaker's slips.

We will now proceed with today's agenda.

Please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous people and

tribal lands. To the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, Southern Maidu,

Valley and Plains Mewak, Patwyn Winton peoples and the people of the Wilton Rancheria,

Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe. May we acknowledge and honor the native people

who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to

gather together today in the active practice of acknowledgments and appreciation for Sacramento's

Indigenous people's history, contributions and lives. Thank you. Please remain standing for the

Pledge of Allegiance. Salute, pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of

America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and

justice for all. Our first business today is approval of the consent calendar. Clerk, are there

any members of the public who wish to speak on the consent calendar? Thank you chair. I have no

speaker slips on the consent calendar. Thank you. Are there any commissioners who wish to speak on this item?

Hearing none. Oh, I recognize vice chairs.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Question for the clerk. This is about the part of the consent calendar that

speaks to the complaint log. I recall we had a fruitful discussion in our latter last meeting on

October around some of the issues that our public commenter raised. I think it was Mr. On

about how the staff responds to some non-jurisdictional complaints and some nutty areas. And I recall

that there was some discussion of some what I call were standard response templates that you

were going to send us. And I'm not sure I received those so I thought I would follow up on that request.

Thank you vice chair. I thought that I sent those to you but I can resend that. Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you.

That is all. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. We will now proceed to the

second. I need to take a vote. So there's a vote going on. Okay. Is there a motion and a second for

the consent calendar? Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion second. Okay. I have a motion

by commissioners, the last was and a second by commissioners, Emory. Will the clerk please

call the row for the vote? Thank you chair. Vice Chair Lafaso. Yes.

Commissioner Adams is absence. Commissioner Velasquez.

Proof. Commissioner Emory. And Chair Ing. Yes. Thank you. The motion passes.

We will now proceed to the discussion calendar.

Number three. Item number three is it update on current training provided to city officials and

commissioners. Is there a staff presentation? Yes. Thank you chair. My name is Mindy Kupy,

your city clerk and staff to the ethics commission. So the Sacramento Ethics Commission in their 2025

work plan wanted to focus on ethics training. And in that work plan, they had two bullets in

furtherance of the city's ethics program goal and clear guidelines on expectations of city officials

in the conduct of the city's business. The commission will review existing ethics training that

is provided by the city and make recommendations regarding additional training as appropriate.

And two to ensure best practices and commission hearings that commission will review and make

recommendations about additional training provided to ethics commissioners. There are two relevant

code sections titled two of the Sacramento municipal code regarding ethics training 4.02.070 is

mandatory ethics training, which is as required by a California assembly bill 1234. And then

mandatory sexual harassment training is covered in 4.02.080. And that is sexual harassment training

is required by California assembly bills 1825 and 1661. Those are done within 30 days of taking

office and then every two years thereafter both trainings. So that is the mandatory training that

is required of city officials. So I'm available for any questions.

I recognize vice chairs and a fossil.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I used to be really good at the old system but that was 10 years ago.

So I guess I have a couple questions and a couple thoughts. So of course the work plan item

that was discussed by the personnel and public employment committee in January contains two items.

One is the in essence the training that's provided to internal actors within the city system.

Some of them are during our jurisdictions. Some of them are not.

And then the second item which is ourselves as the audience. And I appreciate the present

the comments on the what I understood to be the first of the two items.

I have I'm not 100% sure if but I think it is if this item is an opportunity to make comments

about the second of those two which is what this commission might do to enhance the training of

itself which I thought got some positive comments at the PNPE committee about six weeks ago.

Was there anything that staff had planned on that second item that I need to properly wait for

or should I just jump in now? No that's open for discussion. We really need feedback from the

commission on what additional training you feel you should be required to take. Okay I appreciate

that. I just wanted to make sure I'm in the right lane. So I'll start with the first one.

So I mean colleagues ostensibly we were formed as part of a series of good government reforms

in 2017 and there's many aspects of that good government set of reforms that we

will let I'll just say we only have ten gential jurisdiction related to all say it that way.

And I think we all know what the trainings are that commissioners get because we took them

the two noteworthy are the AB 1234 training that we all took a year ago and I think we got a

notice about a week ago we get to do it again. And I think we had a brief casual discussion

at our last meeting about the fact that we all suddenly took the sexual harassment training

and it seemed to be a good one and I threw that out there because I noticed that there was some

aspects about that particular training that were really good and it wouldn't be bad if we built

on that. Now I understand that the city the city invests a lot of money and there's a lot of good

resources that pay for and I'm not sure the city's that terribly interested in what we think about

whether they should you know not invest in the online AB 1234 stuff from FPPC or as a secretary of

state but I'm just throwing that out there but has it relates to sexual harassment? I picked up

something from our enabling ordinance searching last night that kind of surprised me and I'm going

to direct this to you Mr. Lindsey because it speaks directly to the city attorney's office.

So we have all these specific things that the ethics commission gets to do and some of them

have very nuanced language. For example we get to provide input on the first round of selection

of the independent independent evaluator but not in subsequent rounds that was kind of made clear

to us at a brief discussion in September October but there is a paragraph five I'm sorry I'm forgetting

which section it is and it says and I quote provide annual input to the city attorney on the

list of law firms used by the city attorney to conduct investigations at sexual harassment claims

against city officials. Not maybe not sometimes not if not the squishy sort of advice maybe

kind of sort of it says our jurisdictions are providing annual input how do we do that?

I think the agenda I think that would be appropriate means we're doing that.

Okay okay do you have any insight as the last time the commissions perform this annual

responsibility? I think it was last year I think it was the year before that it was probably the

year before that. Okay. If you'd like I could have it when is our next meeting?

I don't know if we need March and April nothing in May then something in June and maybe August

after that. But do we have April meeting too?

Office of the city clerk the next meeting of the ethics commission is March 24th.

I would on the agenda for March 24th. Okay. Appreciate that. So that's that's the most I'm

realistically going to get on the first of the two. The second of two I'm more interested in

because I think we can do more. In my first year as an ethics commissioner especially as I tried

to get my head around our rules of procedure and things that our current and past colleagues wanted

to do as it related to thoughts about what our jurisdiction should be aka the so-called 2018

recommendations which I just stood to grow out of this commission's first year of discussions

about how the rules of procedure were going to be designed and as I understand it and I've been

researching this by speaking to former commissions and commission chairs that some of the decisions

about our rules of procedure were built around the limits in the commission's design and jurisdiction

that are the subject of those 2018 recommendations. But in my research that is trying to find every

document I can find on the web in the city's archives and speaking to former commissions and

commission chairs it's very clear to me that a lot of those procedures were designed by commissioners

who have never seen a hearing yet and this commission is now entering its eighth year and we've had

I don't know 10, eight, seven, somewhere between seven and 10 hearings we have a little bit of

experience and I myself even the very first time I read the ethics commission's procedures

which was I was curious how this body was going to handle the flow cofer campaign finance case

in the fall of 2023 and I knew there was an ethics commission I know other clue about what and I

read the rules of procedure one night and I had a dozen questions about how the rules of procedure

supposed to work and you know what I'm still asking those same questions and I think the best vehicle

to better educate ourselves and what our own rules say is to get some resources from entities

that advise municipal ethics commissions on how those commissions treat some of their hearing

procedures. Now again we have this thing hanging over us that we have substantially less jurisdiction

than say Los Angeles's or Oakland's or San Francisco's but there are other very similar commissions

to us in the state Long Beach San Jose and I always forget Anaheim or Santa Ana you know

these these twin cities in Orange County and I say this and I've been saying something rather

controversial for around the year that I think this is endemic to council manager forms of government

and I will be honest I was on a city committee 15 years ago and I'm I signed a report that's

in the cities for our car supporting council manager government so I'm not against council manager

government but of the big 11 cities in Sacramento that our former and now current mayor like to talk

about about half of them are our structure Long Beach San Jose Sacramento and unless something's

changed since I last looked Santa Ana and Anaheim and one of those two Orange County cities plus

Long Beach plus San Jose have an ethics commission that's a lot like ours and roughly the same

age as ours that is to say it doesn't have independent staffing it's largely complaint driven

most of its support is from the city's city attorney's office or clerk's office and I think it

would be really fruitful for us to hear from as many of those other cities as we can and understand

how they have grappled with a very similar construct that we have I also think it would be good

for us to get some external training from some outside entity with a bit of a legal perspective

that would just help us think a little bit more concretely about how in our hearings we treat legal

and factual matters I brought that up in our last hearing um I won't belabor it anymore but those

are my suggestions to you as colleagues that maybe if you're you want to respond to or maybe

have your own ideas sorry I'm trying to push the agenda I will stop talking here

a last quiz uh yes thank you um chair so I'm I I

so what are what is it that we're trying to do are we looking to see what training needs to be

implemented for um city officials and ourselves or are we looking to um re um to sort of expand or

revamp what our purposes I feel like I'm getting to I'm hearing two very different things

um if the chair would yield sorry I'm being all parliamentary not supposed to have

colleagues actually for mama wasn't sure if you were directing the question to me I I made a

roundabout argument about the the focus of what would be good training for the ethics commission

and I put this whole superstructure about the 2018 records but that's not that's not the square

question in front of us the square questions training for us I apologize for that ambiguity

so it's easy to confuse me

um

I see I'll see you in Germany

I I'm glad to welcome that because I know um best you want to listen to some of the P&P

commission and the 2018 report comes up and I'm not a lawyer and I'll say there's some of those

in going I I don't you know common sense I can listen and all that but um yeah I would

appreciate some more special when it talks about um looking at the outside evaluator I'm going

I'm really not sure what we would be looking at when we're looking for those outside evaluator

look at complaints and that's the sort of thing I think would be helpful to have training on

because I it's beyond anything I've ever done before so thank you

uh uh commission with a last quiz uh two things um one is I I'm not sure what the plan is here if we're

gonna you know um come back in a month and uh with more concrete plans or or this is just

supposed to be an open work group right now um I'd like some clarification on that whenever

but the other is I agree with the uh the evaluation portion um as far as not so much um who we

contract but we all have different experiences um I've been um a part of um custody complaints

for um imprisoned um persons so I have some experience on um what meets the qualifications for

certain type of misconduct um whereas somebody else may have not ever been in that kind of role so

I there has been come up in the past where we've had somebody from the public uh feel express

their feelings that um every complaint should be interviewed by the complaint uh the complaint

that um which is not necessarily true it depends on what the contact is what if all the information

is there and if it rises to the level of a true um possible misconduct so I think I agree with the

the training part of um things that we should the analytical part of an evaluation so we can make um

so each of us individually feels a little more comfortable about the decisions we're making

okay thank you uh vice chair vice chair is the first floor thank you madam chair

um I will if if there's something that's been said I mean I obviously came armed with a lot of

thoughts and I have these thoughts since we talked about the work plan last fall so I'm

sitting on this for four months that's why I'm so on the edge of my seat that was standing if

there's something very pertinent to something that one of us has said that mr. Lindsey is really

wants to respond to before I make any further comments I will certainly yield to the city attorney

at this moment if that's appropriate I just want to thank you very Lindsey general counsel to the

uh commission I just wanted to follow up on um um commissioner will ask us is comment to just

get clarification um is it my understanding what you're looking for um would be training on how to

analyze the actions uh well in regards to at least reports um the actions of the independent

evaluator given that you ultimately might make a decision overriding the recommendation

of the independent evaluator as to a given matter or that an accurate assessment of what you're

what you're seeking so um is is to just maybe bring us individually into the um

not necessarily the life cycle of investigation but the the common indicators that tell you

whether it's um leading to misconduct or if it's not what certain things um lead you to I need to

interview the complaint or it's not necessary depending on each case um which you already know

as an evaluator when you look at the case so um as I'd mentioned uh that the person in the

public that had mentioned that um I think there are possibly people of the the commission that

might also believe that we should be interviewing every complaint but when you're in that type of

field in that role as a trained investigator or evaluator you already know things of how that

works that others may not so to answer your question um just I guess I don't not explain this

when you're as a board member when you're reading what's with the evaluator has summarized

that you have enough information based on the training that you went through that you can see

that either what is being presented is all that there is or that you can identify that there

might be something missing because you have some some training on that type of work.

I think I understand I'm just trying to um as a practical matter I'm trying to think of what

that training would look like oh I have no idea I'm just answering I'm just trying to answer

I have no idea I understand you I understand your concern yeah that's that's that's just my

thing if we're talking about training and evaluating um from that experience there is it's a certain

analytical skill set that you have that you can determine there's like I said there's certain

indicators so it might help the rest of us to have more confidence in what we're looking at um

because I think there's some questions on well where's the rest of the the complaint or or is this

is it complete but I think if you're more educated on on how that all works that it could help us

individually but no I have no idea you have to be in the job really to understand.

And and Cheri I mean that might be a great question for our current independent evaluator is to

ask them to create a training opportunity for the commission um and appear before you with their

processes their procedures and a little bit of going into how to be an evaluator right so yeah

there's usually some type of metrics when you're looking at a case so something like that so

some of us can be more familiar of what those parameters are so I can reach out to our independent

evaluator and then ask them you know to to put a bit on what it would cost to do a training for us

okay um well thank you nice dress love on sir thank you is my microphone on okay sometimes I can

so I I appreciate that idea I'm wondering I'm open mind about this question I'm wondering if our

current independent evaluator is the best entity in essence to give us a little bit of hearing

officer training um to review their work product and because I'm an attorney I bring some tools

and some of these tools are relatively easy to explain and they're the kind of things that a

commission staff should explain to commissioners who are both lawyers and not not lawyers to structure

it and make it easier for them and one very fundamental um uh design concept that I find ambiguous

in our process that I think would be helpful to clarify not in a rule sense but in a practice sense

um but it's it's why I keep referring to the big picture stuff because I find that our process

to be a little amorphous is always understanding what is a question of law and what is a question of fact

because generally speaking if you have a body like ours who are mostly not attorneys generally

speaking you don't want that body to be deciding what the law is unless they get some very very clear

guidance from an expert attorney to help them understand what they want to think about to decide

what the law is or as an attorney might say make a legal conclusion that is very different

from questions of fact which is really what the job of a body like ours is designed to do which is to

say um which is uh to decide did something happen did so and so write the check did so and so hand

the bag of money at the restaurant to the respondent did so and so say the alleged thing that uh

that would be incriminating um that's fundamentally what our job is to do now unfortunately

there's this thing that they love to blow law students mind over called a mixed questionable on

fact and I thought that our last hearing was basically all law there was no dispute that

former mayor Steinberg didn't refer the resolution there was no dispute that Mr that former mayor

Steinberg offered equal time when he limited the people when he limited the the meeting uh uh

commenters at the feb fiber feb 12 meeting whatever it was I don't really think it was

in dispute that there were far more pro gaza versus pro israel uh individuals who showed up on the

non agendized public comment on feb 12 or whenever it was of last year none of the facts were in dispute

our job was to decide kind of a law question did the did the brown act require former mayor Steinberg

to do something he he he clearly did not do we found that he didn't require him to do it or did

something about the city council procedures require mayor Steinberg to refer the resolution

when he didn't we followed the analysis of the independent evaluator and basically

decided that he was not obligated to um

maybe the independent evaluators a good person to give us hearing officer training but the first

thing that a hearing officer gets is how you decide what's a law and how do you decide what's

fact because the important thing there is when it's law you want to ask an expert attorney

when it's fact you kind of pretty much get to decide yourself that that's the number one thing

you raised a couple other thing the other key thing I heard you say is this

thing that I've heard people complain about too about uh uh the role of the complainant

did they get talked to do they get an independent role are they are they guaranteed

a speaking slot in the way the hearing is I remember I asked about this at our last hearing and

and I think for all intents and purposes they're considered another witness

their ability to rejoice is optional and in some respects uh contingent on whether one of us

wants to ask them to speak as a witness and I've heard complainants complain about that

I would love to know how Long Beach uh San Jose or the Orange County City and whose name

one of the the one I can't remember and I'm saying Anna how they do with that issue

because we don't we don't get to decide who the dependent evaluator is we got one shot at that

in the ordinance and we don't get another shot at that's what our ordinance says but we do

get some authority over what the independent evaluator does because we get to write the rules

of procedure and a lot of the rules that they're required to follow are in our rules of procedure

and we actually can change them I'm not recommending we do I'm more interested in in our being

knowledge about what our rules mean and so yes I think if our independent evaluator wants to give

us some kind of basic hearing officer training that helps us distinguish questions of law and

questions of fact and what to do when they're mixed and that gets hairy um that I think is a good

thing but I do think that we would understand our rules a little better if we also heard from

some of the jurisdictions that have a process a lot like ours and understand how their processes

have evolved to do some of these sort of minor questions that are still that start keep coming

and front and front of us like how complainants are dealt with in the hearing or how the complaint

processes managed or what are the interim steps of the independent evaluators or maybe they have

an ALJ that they've pulled from a state agency or one of their other agencies whatever it is there's

a staff rule that that evaluates the case and interviews or investigates all of the parties

and puts something together for a commission to to review and then hopefully there's some item

a entity that helps the commission get its head around especially legal questions because those

are the things that when you have a citizen body who are not lawyers we're supposed to get help on

so I'd like to see us hear from our sister commissions that look a lot like us I think it

help us understand our process better. Okay anyone else anyone commissioner?

You know we stole out a lot of ideas I think it would be great if the city clerk can summarize

what we're talking about and just send out the you know what what the suggestions are because

there's so many things so many things going on and since the training is really part of our

work plan for this year so it would be great if you can give us a list and let us review that

and then prioritize which one is more important for this year and then and then we can go forward with

that. If I may summarize what I've heard today today the item on the table is an update on current

training provided and there's two parts so one was training provided regarding appointed and

elected officials and then the second prong was training for this commission this body and what I

what I heard is really talk conversations about training for this body one was training on what is

what is an evaluator to do what are they investigated what are their thought process and I that's

something I can reach out to our independent evaluator we have two evaluators on contract I can

reach out to them and ask it might be great to have both perspective of course there's a cost

involved with that training vice chair really talked about what other commissions do and if

it's in regards to training that would be acceptable for this topic but that might be a better topic

for your next year's work plan or for an ad hoc to investigate what other commissions are doing

because really this your work plan for this coming year was training focused so I need direct

direction from the commission on that will you be able to you know put it in writing and center to us

so I mean you know put it in the email and center to us so we we all have a clear understanding

is what we had to I'd be happy to summarize it my notes and appreciate that well thank you thank you

um I have to apologize for for the members of the public I didn't miss uh I didn't mean to miss you

so Clark are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item thank you chair

thank you chair I have no speaker slips on this item okay so this item is received but oh

yeah I'm sorry I keep looking okay uh vice chair is a lot of fun so you have something

you have to make it coming no okay all right thanks commission have a last one

those clerk mendi are you asking for us to prioritize the two um the part the portion of

the training and the portion of the work plan as far as um evaluating what our um objective is

or what our area of um purview is is that what you're asking just a minute ago for us the feedback

from us um well what I heard is we didn't really talk about any education for elected and

appointed officials we were really focused on this body and what training that you feel you need

and what I heard was that you needed you would like to have hearing officer training or really

what are evaluated their process their procedure their thought process um the other that vice chair

talked about was what other entities are doing and if that's related to training um that's

something we could research but based on these goals for this upcoming year um if you wanted to

look at what other agencies are doing that might be a good option for an ad hoc so a couple of

members two members could meet and talk about that and do some research on what other agencies

are doing and then propose either changes to your um enacting ordinance your procedures so forth

okay so this is the part of the meetings that I get stuck on I'm very direct so how do we move

from what you just said to an actual something in writing or decision am I missing something

so what I heard from the commission is that you'd like me to look into hearing examiner training

for yourselves okay and then the rest of it the rest of it in in my um read of it if it's has to

do with training that other agencies are giving to their commissioners that's research I could do

but if it's in researching how other commissions work their procedures their hearing processes um to

me that's not part of what your annual work plan was if that's something that you're the commission

as a whole is interested in doing the chair can appoint an ad hoc committee to have two members work

on it um or we can bring that back at a later a date um for a process for the commission to take on

okay can we talk about what we want to do then for that that that that separate that second half

that she was talking about on old pen for discussion I just don't want to just leave it like we

never talked about it and it just kind of floats away I'm a little like what are we just

crashing it or are we are we going to put it on for next year what are we doing you sure

to write I mean this is continue we we really need to continue yeah I didn't I didn't bring that up

so I'm just whatever you guys I just want you know so it's not doesn't disappear into the air

I have a comment madam chair but I wanted to give commissioner Velasca it's the opportunity

to finish her so she had the floor am I recognized madam chair yeah okay yes you recognize

we should that so a couple things um one I don't think it is too burdensome in the course of a

whole year work plan to both get some hearing officer training and get something from those other

commissions um I'm going to hold off on the question as to whether the work plan item is circumscr as

circumscribed as the clerk says it is but I will respond to it in these ways one if it were the

case that the approval we needed from the P and P.E. Committee limits what we can dock about

under this item then I then fine I want to hear what kind of training the commissions in San Jose

Long Beach and the city in Orange County again but I would ask my colleagues to ask that we hear

directly from them let's put that on the agenda it is not that burdensome in the course of seven

meetings in a 12-month period to hear from a hearing trainer somebody from San Jose talking about

their training somebody from Long Beach talking about their training and somebody from Anaheim

talking about their training that's four people in the course of us of a calendar year that's not

we can do it all it's not that much lastly madem cheer will you remind me what the situation is on

commission ad hawks these days I know that got a lot of attention in the second half of uh

calendar year 2024 I have a thought on that but I want to make sure I understand what the current

state of the city law is on that absolutely um and can before we move on to that the four agencies

San Jose Long Beach Anaheim and there is one more um I keep being ambiguous because I can't

remember which of the two large cities in central Orange County it's one or the other okay we let me

know it's yeah um and talking directly to that I can reach out to those to see if they would be

interested in presenting to the commission so I can reach out to those agencies and then lastly

the municipal code was changed so that commissions may form ad hoc committees um

per some regulation so we have some guidelines for those for instance less an aquarium of course

limited duration and scope but commissions may form ad hoc and that's the purview of the chair

so the chair can appoint an ad can create an ad hoc and appoint members members of course can't

rotate on and off um so you would hit a quorum at some point so less an aquarium so for this

legislative body it's two people understood um I'm not prepared I'm not prepared to ask for an ad

hoc at this juncture um I think it'd be better if our scope is limited to hearing what training

other commissions get including what kind of hearing officer training do they get

do they get more do they get less than us I would be better for us to do that before forming

in that hoc um I appreciate your meta question commissioner Velaska's about things just going

into the ether so many of our items are receive and file and there's nothing about the design of

the item to culminate in something concrete if it weren't a receive and file I would summarize

everything I said and proposed in the form of emotion I'm not sure I can do that because of the

nature of the agenda item um but I would I would even offer the motion that I would make that

I'm not allowed to make if the city attorney says I'm not allowed to make it because it's a

person but anyway I am here to to to address the I forgot how you said it I interpreted it going

to the ether I share your frustration I appreciate that comment and I'm prepared to meet you

meet you on that problem and chair if I may have recommendation is not an action item however I

would be happy to hear your summarize so that we can all be clear on what the ask is okay um

assuming that the issue of the sexual harassment item I asked the city attorney about earlier

as it taken care of I proposed that we move on item two of our work plan by getting some hearing

officer training potentially by our one of our evaluator independent evaluator law firms

and two that we hear directly from the large California cities that have commissions similar to ours

and I long beat San Jose and that one in Orange County Santa and or Anaheim I can't remember which

and that we hear directly from them on what their training is including but not limited to

what kind of hearing officer training they get

me I asked something I if that's this is the case and in view of you know what the commotion vice chair

of us saying that our meetings for this year is like we just have our first and we have seven meetings

that's six left and so timing is very critical for us to achieve the evaluator meeting so we should

establish a timeline and and see when we can receive now for those kind of trainings is it coming

to to train us or we have to be somewhere you know in the city hall and receive that type of

training so typically I would help that in an open and public meeting why would need to reach out

to our independent evaluators do a little bit of research and see if there are other hearing

advanced examiners that might be appropriate and then for the other cities it really depends on

their scheduling if they're willing to come present or if they're going to provide a documentation

for us to review so it really depends on those other agencies and their availability the I'm not

sure if our independent evaluator can you know just present to you or we need to prepare some

training materials for you depends if that's a four hour training a six hour training there are

opportunities the brown act does allow for you to be outside the public forum for certain trainings

but I don't see reason why we would not record that for the public so that they're all on the

same page so really depends on those agencies that I would be reaching out to if we fly someone in

am I paying for their hotel and their travel and so there's a couple things we need to review

and some might say we don't do any training and for them to fly here to make that comment might not

be appropriate you know based based on what our discussions we all interest it I mean we have to

do and this is our plan so let me ask you the Gwen will we hear back

can I can I jump in there sure I think we need to allow uh clerk mindi and her staff some time to

contact the other cities and contact the evaluator and then um we'll see what they come up with

by the next meeting yes I'd be happy to provide an update of the next meeting but I can't

I'm not comfortable committing to having something that's going to depend on when the

agencies the other agencies respond and that's what I think yeah is it good yeah agree on that okay

we don't need any vote yeah commission and I am well

and let's not forget what we direct you know through zoom and ask questions which

might make it easier for scheduling especially for those other cities yeah so yeah

mindi would you please check see the virtual training is feasible to

absolute without something I would take into consideration so much and thank you for this suggestion

yeah okay uh anymore discussion on this so that'll good so uh

we don't need any more this item is to receive and file so no vote is required we will move on

to the next item item five is this is the selection of chair and vice chair for calendar year

2025 is there a staff presentation thank you chair good evening my name is Jacob Redberg with the

office of the city clerk as no staff presentation on this item all information is detailed in your

staff report however I will remind the members of a few things members may nominate one another or

themselves for chair or vice chair typically nominations will be heard for the chair position first

followed by nominations for vice chair a member may serve as the chairperson or vice chair person

for no more than two calendar years and the newly elected chairperson and vice chairperson

will start their terms at the next regular meeting so of the current roster all members are eligible

to serve as chair and for vice chair member atoms and member in are ineligible to serve

again as vice chair i'm available for any questions

commission let me go to the general public so okay thank you clerk are there any members of a

public who wish to speak on this item thank you i have no speaker slips on this item

thank you are there any commissioners who wish to speak on this item i recognize

commissioners of the last words so i'm i'm a little confused and i'm hoping that there's somebody

out there in in the listening land that's confused too i thought we just nominated you like two

months ago um along with uh uh chair so yeah that's what we did this like three months two three

months ago thank you very good well with so the city clerk please ask that this question

was that was that is that was that a continuation of a previous seat term and so it only filled it for a few

months from our records i believe the last chair and vice chair item was 12 months ago

yeah it seems like yesterday yeah i can double check but mr breadburg is is probably accurate

i was just going to say you know time flies me having fun

well thank you for the question you know what yeah yeah we're time flies

okay so is your your terms ending one year okay so the seat is ending is a one year

uh vice position okay so the seat doesn't end but you're the the position your end does correct

that the terms for chair and vice chair for calendar year so every calendar year we select a

a new chair or possibly continue the chair and vice chair from the previous year

so any other commissioners who wish to speak yes vice chairs are the possible

i'm going to just cut to the chase uh i nominate i nominate chair in for another term as chair

and just to get the show in the room i'm going to nominate myself for another term as vice chair

in a combined motion okay thank you is there a motion and a second for

so i have a motion by vice chair of one so and a second by commissioner

balasquez so will the clerk please call the row for the vote just for the record um do you accept

the nomination as vice chair yes yes sorry for chair my apologies do you accept you accept the

nomination as chair except it as vice chair for yourself excellent thank you for allowing me to

clarify that so i'll now do the roll call vote uh vice chair lafaso yes commissioner Adams

is absence uh commissioner of lasquez yes commissioner emery i accept approve approve yeah

yes yes uh and chair in yes thank you thank you the motion passes

congratulation what congratulations i mean please with continuing the leadership

well honestly i haven't seen so much laughter so this is great

she's not going to bring in the joy back the next item is member comments ideas question and member

conference report are there any commissions which to speak

um vice chair lafaso i'm i was the old one i'm out of the queue but i think

oh i see i see all right come yeah i write are you commissioner emery yes please okay the floor is

you have a spook thank you so um yeah it has seen a very fast year it's easy to look

track of time thank you all wrong but i do want you know that i appreciate all the work that

went into working on the presentation making it a little bit less uh bound by city code this and

that and a little bit more speakable and so far i've done two presentations i i did a presentation

the first one to the north nautomas uh community association and then i did another into the

garland north gate neighbored association and i do have requests out or offers out to the del

pass a heights association benito worez and wood like which are all in district two which i

thought would be a good area to make sure that they knew about the ethics commission um from

bat experience so um it went well and i did get one question that i'd like to ask the city

clerk that was asked to me and this is no reflection on you but it was a question i asked

since the city clerk is one of the people that is jurisdiction and if somebody has a complaint

against the city clerk who then looks at that complaint and that was a question i got

that's a great question typically we coordinate with our city attorney's office and our city

auditor's office okay and i i told him it would not be the city clerk but i did not exactly i don't

get it so thank you but that was really the only question and um i met i did a little ad libbing i

would start off my presentation of who erase your hand if you know that we do have an ethics commission

and it's generally less than 50 percent so i'm glad we're going out and doing this so looking forward

to doing more of these this year and we'll fill in as these get done thank you well thank you for

your outreach effort thank you so much now vice chairs and a fossil thank you i thought

forgot we were going to talk about outreach and i decided to lay back and see how this played out

but i did hear a little bit about commissioner emory's good work starting with learning that she

took the offer that the clerk emailed us about a couple weeks ago and um

i'm still not clear on what our marketing strategy is i had a silly thought that maybe we should

put something on our website basically saying you want a presentation click on this link and make

a request and then i figured out that we don't have a website not exactly i mean there's a

that very mechanical granicus website that says who the commissioners are and how you apply

and when the terms end um i know there's a good governance website that has a couple ethics commission

related links such as how to file and complain what our rules of procedure are is are and maybe it's

our work plan i i don't know if it's more appropriate to ask for an agenda item at the next meeting

first to talk more robustly about how our out streets outreach strategy is intended to

progress on what our strategy is because i don't know how much we can talk about in a non-agenda

is item um but i will say that since it does seem to me that this shows going to move by individual

commissioner initiative um commissioner emery did inspire me to do a little work on my own

and i am on the agenda for the Tahoe Park Neighborhood Association um for may 12

which is actually an object lesson as it relates to this because you have to get on these

neighborhood associations agenda's early because they fill up i was like oh you can have may

march in april already taken up um but i'm not i it's clear to me that neighborhood associations

are a good first target audience that that can work by commissioner initiation but my individual

outreach is going to be idiosyncratic to my own connections which are largely related to council

district four and council district six um i don't know very many associations outside that area um

okay maybe a couple in council district seven because land park used to be in council district four

so maybe it would be good for us to have a talk on what our marketing strategy is on an

agenda is item so we don't have to tap dance around the non-agenda but i is very happy to hear

about the good work you've done commissioner embryon as i said you inspired me to to do some

initiation on my own oh in last question there's there's got to be some kind of good

clearinghouse where we tell the clerk what our volunteer assignments are seems to me it's a good idea

for us to have a composite record of the presentations that we've done i'm sure you're perfectly happy

to hear my comments at an open meeting madam clerk but you know if we want a period with two or

three months we're you know we didn't have a meeting i don't think you'd want to wait three

months for me to tell you what i was up to so if you have a comment on what's the best way for us to

record and manage this in an organized way that's very helpful to me yes thank you vice chair and

madam chair if i may briefly respond to this as the vice chair mentioned this isn't something on

the agenda so i can briefly make comments i like the idea of the website so that's a simple fix

when we just we when you adopted these programs we talked about having our community engagement

manager get the word out which she's done and those come to me and then i will reach out to

see if anyone's available i believe we talked about having this as an appropriate forum under

comments ideas and questions to share the presentations you've made and if you have any feedback

our words of wisdom if you wanted you can forward them to me so we don't forget and i'll keep

them on my list and remind you with these forums if we don't if you don't make an oral announcement

thank you thank you just very quickly i think this sort of follow along there because i was actually

thinking in the community engagement group they i go every month at their city connect where they

go out and they have people in the city and neighbor associations and just community leaders

so i'm glad that you have reached out to Lynette and the and the community outreach because i think

that that's really one of the best ways to market it and they do send out monthly things thank you

and then commissioner emory is is presenting on the sixth i believe to the committee ambassadors group

well anyone else well i think that we should really establish a target for the year

you know how many community outreach you want to do 10 12 maybe too much you know i mean

there would be good for us to you know just commissioner speak highly of our commission too

chair would that be inappropriate agenda item for our next meeting is it to talk about community

outreach again agree okay thank you okay thank you all the last item is public comments matters

not on the agenda madam clerk are there any members of a public who wish to speak on public

comments matter not on the agenda thank you chair i have no speaker slips on the item

hey this concludes today's agenda thank you thank you everyone for your participation the meeting

is adjourned

thank you thank you

just