By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City council members during their most recent meeting continued to wrestle with a
proposed code of ethics for city public officials, voting to postpone action on the code for
an additional six weeks after a lengthy discussion.
The council has discussed aspects of a proposed code of ethics for several months.
During their April 8 meeting, the council was presented with portions of the proposed
code dealing with discretionary contracts, city employees who have the authority to
approve city contracts, enforcement mechanisms and administrative provisions.
Before the start of the discussion, Mayor Al Arreola asked City Attorney Ana Markowski
Smith if she had a presentation on the portions of the code being presented to the council.
Smith told the council, “Again, this is just for discussion. It’s the second part. This deals
mostly with what kind of enforcement processes there are. We’re going to discuss this
more in detail once we determine if we’re going to have an ethics advisory committee,
and Councilwoman (Carmen) Gutierrez had some thoughts on that matter.
“We do need to decide who’s going to enforce the ordinance,” Smith added, then asked
Gutierrez if she wanted to speak about her concerns.
Gutierrez said she had some comments about the proposed ethics review board.
“I believe appointing individuals that are of good moral character in itself is very
subjective, and the problem that I see is that it could become very political,” Gutierrez said.
She added there have been many examples of government officials who were believed to
be of good character, but who were arrested and convicted of serious crimes
“Even in this community we have seen it, so I would have a difficult time with an ethics
review board,” Gutierrez added.
She also asked whether or not the city had an ethics code in its policy for city employees.
“We do, but it’s not very comprehensive,” Smith replied.
Gutierrez said she believed an employee ethics code should be part of the employees’
handbook.
The councilwoman said she also had questions regarding the portion of the proposed
code dealing with discretionary contracts and prohibiting former city elected officials or
employees from having a financial interests in those contracts.
“How are you going to hold a former city official or a former employee, a former elected
official, accountable?” Gutierrez asked.
She pointed out both Councilman J.P. Sanchez and Councilman Randy Quiñones own
their own businesses and asked if the ethics code would prevent them from participating
in city contracts after they left the council.
“Well, that’s the first portion of the ethics ordinance, and I had actually brought that up if
we wanted to include former employees and former councilmembers, and the answer was
yes and that’s why it’s in there, but again, that would be something that council could
decide, if you want to include that. Because enforcing as to former members is harder than it is for people who are serving at the moment, so that’s definitely something that
council can vote on,” Smith replied.
Gutierrez also asked about how ethics violations would be reported.
“We haven’t decided who’s going to be the body that enforces that,” Smith said.
Arreola asked, “I guess the other question, we’re talking about the code of ethics for most
of the discussion has been council, but what about an employee? What about you, Mrs. Burkhart, Ms. Acosta? Are you guys (included)?”
“That’s part of the definitions that we discussed the first go-round. We identified who the
‘city officials’ were, and that included the city manager, the city attorney, the city
secretary and the municipal court judge,” Smith replied.
Arreola asked, “How is it currently done right now? If there is a complaint, who gets it
and what’s the process?”
“In the city of Del Rio? We don’t have a process,” Smith replied.
“So if there’s a complaint against any of us, there’s no process?” Arreola asked.
“No, there is not a process,” Smith said.
Smith added the city’s personnel policy manual has a process for complaints, but added,
“It’s not comprehensive either.”
Arreola asked who would appoint the ethics review committee.
“That’s what Councilwoman Gutierrez was saying, she has a concern about having an
appointed committee, and what I hear her saying is, she would rather have it self-
governed, which means the council hears all complaints instead of appointing a
committee,” Smith said.
Mayor Pro-tem Jim DeReus said he agreed that employee ethics could be handled
through the city’s human resources department and added he is willing to discuss the pros
and cons of an ethics review committee, but said there must be an enforcement
mechanism for any ethics code.
“We need to have multiple levels of potential discipline, whether it’s censure, whether
it’s kicking people off. We can talk about those specific details, but there needs to be
some sort of enforcement mechanism, either an outside committee or internal. I’m not
hard over on either one of those, as long as we have something,” DeReus said.
Councilman Jesus Lopez Jr. said although he understood a code of ethics might be
necessary for the council to enact “down the line,” he said more issues need to be
considered before approving such a code.
“I think the code of ethics needs to be examined deeper. . . Given the many issues the city
faces at this time and attention that those items need, I move for this item to be tabled for
a later time so that we do not rush into this, bring unintended consequences and that we
focus our efforts on many important improvements and issues affecting the city
currently,” Lopez said.
He added he believes the city charter and state law already covers much of what is being
discussed.
Gutierrez commented that while she agreed with Lopez, “There has to be some type of
accountability.”
Lopez said the council could ask the city’s human resources department “how to go about
that.”
“Do you prefer that the HR person work on this ethics ordinance, is that what you’re
saying?” Smith asked.
“No, ma’am, I’m saying there are already ethics. There’s already a code of ethics within
the charter and within state (law). I haven’t compared them to yours, to see if they’re the
same or what vocabulary you’re adding on, doing the right thing or wrong thing,” Lopez
said.
“We don’t have an ethics mechanism in the charter, so we’re trying to put people on
notice that this is what could happen if you violate, and I think the direction is that we’ll
have a policy for the officials and a policy for the employees,” Smith said.
Gutierrez said she believed the city attorney “is on the right track.”
Smith reminded the council the code of ethics “is a work in progress” and is not ready to
be adopted.
DeReus said he had called the office of the Texas Attorney General to seek guidance on
the ethics issues some time ago.
DeReus said, “They asked me, ‘Do you have a specific city ordinance in place related to
disciplining up to kicking someone off city council if they violate the charter?’ And when
I said no, she said, ‘There’s nothing in state law that allows you to do that unless you
have something specific to your city that has been passed.’ And that is why we need to do
something.
“Like I said, having a separate one for the employees, a separate one for the city council
and senior city officials, great, that makes sense, but what is the enforcement mechanism?
Because you’re right, there are lot of references to this is what you’re supposed to do, this
is what you’re not supposed to do, but what happens if you violate those? We don’t have
anything in place.
“We’ve talked about this a number of times over the past few years since I’ve been on
council and we have no ability to do anything other than wag our fingers and go, ‘bad.’
Until there’s some actual repercussions, we’re still going to have these problems with
people who are still going to overstep their bounds,” DeReus said.
DeReus also alluded to a series of ethics complaints that had occurred during his time on
the council.
“There were complaints that made their way to the city manager.
The city manager, when
it reached that critical level and after he had tried talking with the person and kept on
getting complaints, brought it to city council and then that’s when we directed, at the time
City Manager John Sheedy and the city attorney, get an outside investigation.
“But that was ad hoc. There was no process, and then when we got the results, what’s
been done? Absolutely nothing. It hasn’t been publicized, nothing has been done. There
have been no repercussions for anything that was found during that investigation, and that
is what we need to remedy,” De Reus added.
As the discussion continued, Acosta reminded the council that Lopez had made a motion
to table the item.
DeReus then asked Lopez if he intended to table the item “to kill it or postpone it and
give the city attorney, city manager, HR, a chance to work on it and bring it back?”
“I’m just saying to table it to move it to a later time,” Lopez replied.
DeReus said he believed if the item was postponed, a time frame should be added.
Lopez then said he wished to make a motion “to postpone it for a few months, two or
three months.”
“I do not want to rush this. I would rather take a little bit more time and do it right, but I
want to give some specific timeline to bring back the next iteration,” DeReus said.
Arreola asked if bringing the item back during the council’s second meeting in May
would give the city attorney enough time to complete her work on the code of ethics.
She indicated it would, and Lopez and DeReus both said six weeks.
Gutierrez also asked Smith if six weeks was enough time. “This is all about getting something that you are comfortable with, and six weeks is
enough time,” Smith replied.
Gutierrez thanked Smith for her hard work, then the council voted unanimously to
postpone action on the code of ethics for six weeks.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
