By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A divided city council on Tuesday approved a code of ethics for city council members.
After City Secretary Mari Acosta read the heading of the agenda item, Mayor Al Arreola recognized City Attorney Ana Markowski Smith, who wrote the code.
Smith asked council members if they had reviewed the document and whether or not they had any questions about it.
Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez said she did and began by asking Smith about a provision in the code about filing complaints.
Gutierrez said, “It reads, ‘Any person who believes that a violation by a city official of any portion of the code has occurred may file a complaint with the city council.’ My question is, is that through the city secretary or would they come before us, here at city council, or how would that work?”
“Typically, it would be with the city secretary,” Smith replied.
Gutierrez then asked about a line in the same portion of the code, dealing with hearings for any council member about whom an allegation had been made, and Smith said those hearings would be conducted under the Texas Open Meetings Act.
“If a lawsuit has been filed, you can still move into executive session and talk about what the next steps are going to be,” Smith said.
“Okay, very good; that’s all I had,” Gutierrez said.
Arreola asked Smith, “For my benefit: We already have a charter, right? Does something like this (code of ethics) already exist in the charter?”
“No, it does not,” Smith said.
“At all?” Arreola asked.
“No, sir,” Smith replied.
“Mayor, I do advocate for it, because not only does it identify examples, it also identifies what actions city council can take, what types of sanctions. . .
Code of ethics should be written not to target any individual but just to ensure that, should a council person abuse, misuse, the official capacity of their position, that they are already knowledgeable as to what a repercussion or consequence would be,” Gutierrez said.
“I agree with you, Councilwoman Gutierrez. The other thing that’s important is that sometimes, and I say all of us, get confused about what the councilperson’s role is.
Because you are in a leadership capacity, and we do work under the council, so it was helpful to me to find examples that other cities had used, so that it would be clearer to everybody what you can and cannot do,” Smith said.
“Any other concerns or questions for Ana?” Arreola asked, then recognized Councilman Jesus Lopez Jr.
Lopez said, “Ms. Ana, this is a code of ethics and you’re making it into an ordinance.
Shouldn’t it be part of the (city) charter?”
Smith replied, “That would be nice, but . . . if we go through the charter it would take more time. We’d have to have a special committee, and then you have to take it out to the voters. If you do have it in the charter, then you’re able to put in a provision for forfeiture of office, which means that council members can be removed.
“You can also put in a provision for fines, things like that. Because we’re a home rule city, we’re limited by what we can do. It has to be in the charter, as opposed to general law cities, where you actually have statutes that govern these types of behaviors, and so I would recommend that the charter reflect Texas law in terms of how we move forward,” Smith said.
Lopez said he had all of the previous segments of the code of ethics Smith had presented at meetings in January, April and June, adding he believed she had removed certain portions and added others. He also said he believed the code should be included in the city charter.
Smith replied, “Okay, so, number one, I disagree that it has to be in the charter. If it were in the charter, like I said, we could have more enforcement action, which includes removal, automatic forfeiture of the office if you violate some of these ordinances.”
Lopez said, “And the language here is only directed to city council and mayor. You removed city attorney, you removed city manager, you removed all the employees, administration. This ordinance is based solely on city council and mayor.”
Smith replied, “Correct. What we discussed in an earlier meeting, and you may not have been here, was to have a separate policy for employees and that would be in the personnel policy manual and that would go through human resources. We did have that open discussion, and that was the recommendation of council.”
When Lopez again complained that the ordinance dealt only with the mayor and other members of the city council, Smith replied, “That’s the direction that I received from the council.”
“Well, not from me,” Lopez responded.
“It was council as a whole during a meeting,” Smith said.
Mayor Pro-tem Jim DeReus interjected, “If I may, Jesse, that was at one of the meetings that you missed because you were visiting family. That had been a discussion that we had to do them separately because it was just getting very confusing and, you know, things were merging, and so we gave direction that it be separated.”
Lopez said, “. . . this ordinance is not acceptable to me because why is it only city council and mayor?”
Arreola then asked Acosta, “Mari is there such a thing in the charter?”
“I’d have to look at it, but as I recall there is not anything related to ethics in our current charter,” Acosta said.
“There is not,” DeReus said.
“Well, then we have to include it into the charter in basics of acceptable, you know, ways of regulating these ethics,” Lopez said.
“It would be up to the council as a whole,” Acosta said.
“For right now, this ordinance is not good,” Lopez said.
Gutierrez said, “Mayor, may I ask Ms. Smith a question? Will there be (a) separate (code) for the other three, the city manager or (the council’s) other employees?”
“Right now, they’re included as employees, but if you want a different policy that involves them only, we can do that,” Smith replied.
“Because I think that’s what he’s also asking. It included all of us and now this is just for city council, the mayor and city council,” Gutierrez said.
“Correct. It’s just for city council,” Smith replied.
“So where would you all fall in, since you’re our employees?” Gutierrez asked.
“We could, in the personnel policy manual, have something separate for employees that work directly under city council, and I think that the purpose of that would be that we really don’t go through human resources. We answer to council directly and so those policies would be written to reflect that,” Smith said.
“Exactly,” Gutierrez said.
Councilman J.P. Sanchez then said, “Mayor, I’d like to make a motion, to go ahead with this proposed ordinance, establishing a code of ethics for the city.”
Arreola said, “Councilman (Randy) Quinõnes, you have a question?”
“I’d like to second,” Quiñones said.
“Any questions, concerns from the dais? Any additional comments?” Arreola asked.
Hearing none, the mayor again said, “No? Any comments?”
He then said, “All in favor?”
Sanchez, Quiñones, DeReus, Gutierrez and Arreola raised their hands.
“Against?” the mayor asked, and Lopez and Councilwoman Ernestina “Tina” Martinez raised their hands. Gutierrez also raised her hand again, appearing to vote twice on the
motion. (See separate story here.)
“The motion passes,” Acosta announced.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
