Okay.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the April 15th Workshop City Commission meeting.

Um, the purpose of this meeting is to give us our annual required ethics training in person rather than online, which we frequently do.

Last year, um, Longboat Key invited us to attend their in-person uh session, and it was so useful being able to being in a small group and able to ask specific questions that are relevant to our organizations here in Sarasota County.

Um, and uh Commissioner Alper could not make it today, but I know she's gonna take the required course online, like we frequently do.

So with that, I will turn the program over to Randy Mora, who by the way usually runs the Florida League of Cities online course for everyone in the cat in the state, and he does such a great job, so I'm very glad that he's here today.

So Randy, you can kick it off.

Um, as stated, my name is Randy Mora.

I'm with the Tras Daniel Law Firm, our firm partners with and collaborates with your city attorney's office to provide services.

I've had the joy of joining you folks before on on parliamentary procedure and other and some of your other boards on related topics.

So today we get the very exciting, exciting experience of going through the four hour training, two hours on ethics, one hour on records, one hour on meetings.

I will go in that order.

Those are classroom hours, so they're roughly 50 minutes for every hour.

We will take a break once we're through ethics as an opportunity for me to reset and for you.

And of course, just as a ground rule, while this is a meeting of your body and I defer to your rules, you guys are grown folks.

If you need to use the restroom or just stand up, do so.

The other part of that is I rarely get the opportunity to do this kind of presentation in such an intimate environment.

Uh normally navigating a room of more people, which is to say we have a little more time and cushion.

If you have targeted questions, let me know.

I I'd like to avoid very specific questions.

When we did this one hearing, should it have happened this way?

Not that, but just hey, guidance going forward.

Uh for purposes of today's presentation, uh, I will be your tour guide, and we are cruising at 30,000 feet, which is to say I'm going through Florida law.

Um there may be some things in Sarasota County or the city of Sarasota that are slightly different, or Northport, uh, welcome to our guests, um, that are slightly different.

And so I'm co-cruising with what state law is.

Uh, of course, happy to engage with any uh nuanced issues.

That said, my name is Randy Mora.

I'm the city attorney for the city of Homes Beech.

I've represented four other jurisdictions in Pinellas County.

Uh, in addition to serving as a city attorney over the last 12 years or so, I also um work with the Florida Municipal Insurance Trust as panel counsel uh for litigation when city issues go sideways, which is to say I have the rare uh benefit of not just seeing policy on the front end but how it resolves on the back end, and I'll bring that to bear in some of our examples today.

And then finally, this is my favorite part of my practice.

I I do travel and also um now much more webinars uh in presenting on issues of ethics, public records, public meetings, technology, and how all those things intersect.

It's my favorite part of the practice because the stress to billable ratio is much lower.

Uh and we're not starting in a place of crisis, we're just usually starting from a place of wanting to do better.

Uh so with that, thank you.

Um I I do recognize you've been voluntold to be here by the Florida legislature, but I appreciate your time and attention all the same.

Uh so with that, we'll start with ethics.

So when we talk about ethics today, I want to be very, very clear what we are and are not talking about.

Um we have these high-minded notions that government is a trust and the officers of the government are trustees, and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.

That's from uh Henry Clay, one of our earlier founding fathers and politicians, but we find that repeated in Florida's constitution.

And all of our presentation, all my presentations today will start in the Constitution, work through the statutes, talk a little bit about common law, which is just a fancy phrase for what judges say the law means over time, um, and then we'll get through some examples on each.

And so, starting in our constitution, this is to me, I don't care what topic you are presenting, it can be variances, it can be public meetings, whatever topic you're presenting with for local government, I think should start with this slide.

Because this is the um this is the North Star.

Uh if you're here for an ethics presentation, you're in the right place.

If you're here for DRC, there's another fun room going on, just so you know.

So much excitement for ethics today.

So I appreciate the enthusiasm.

So that said, a public office is a public trust, and the people shall have the right to secure and sustain that trust against abuse.

Let's break that down.

What that means is you do not hold your office for your benefit.

Yes, being a commissioner, mayor, vice mayor may give you a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart.

It may help your ego, it may just give you an excuse to not be home on a Tuesday night, whatever the reason is, that's great.

But the benefit is truly for that of the public.

And that public is broad.

That is not the people who elected you.

That is not everybody who owns property or everybody without a criminal conviction, or everybody who is a Floridian.

It's everybody.

You hold your office for the benefit of all your residents, visitors, guests, business owners, investors in your community.

And your challenge, which thank you for doing your job, is balancing all of those interests to serve the public trust.

Myself, Joe, our peers who sit in the EC, we get the luxury of saying, man, that's a really hard decision.