2004-05-12 Board of Ethics Minutes REG pc

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SC.. You'll keep them, you'll file them on a Gift Disclosure. And then at the end of the year ... you'll hold them over to another year, or are you just going get rid of them by the end of year through giving them to... Mr. Ashida: Probably throughout the year. We do not accumulate throughout the year and we just wanted to let you know actually as soon as we started getting these in, prior to this meeting, I immediately put out a memo to all the staff that they're not to keep them. They are to turn it in to the supervisors and we'll hold them until resolution of this case in an abundance of caution. The other thing is, you know, when I thought about it in a more commonsensical way, it's no different than... you know, I gotta go work. Small reporters would argue that, eh, I can't compete with big guys. But then when the court reporters come to our office for a day of depositions, they bring a box of donuts, pastries or manapua for us. And then thought about it, I go, "How is that different ?" It's really not, you know, so, you know, I admit that when it first happened... it smelled bad too... because, you know the antennas go up... and you say, "eh, this cannot be right." And when you think about, analyze in that way. And again, the fact that we have this rotating set in stone schedule, that at least prior to these gifts ever coming in, I felt, again, just to a lay any concern... anybody in our office has, I mean, it's like, I just want to make sure. That's basically our situation. would be more than happy to answer any questions or concerns. SC.. I'm all clear, I'm just little... I'm just concerned how it's going to be handled. Who's going to collect these. And you said you are going to collect them. Mr. Ashida: Right now... SC.. And disclose them. Mr. Ashida: The clerical supervisor, I assigned her to physically collect them from the girls, SC: Okay. Mr. Ashida: The legal clerks. Then they will be turned over to me. I will report them on my year end gift disclosure statement, June 30th. Just so that there's a record of what's out there and what had come in. And in terms of how they would then be dispersed to the staff... that shall be control... there's a specific employee rewards program that the County already in place that we can utilize that as the template as to how it can be distributed in whether to use them as for example, lucky number prizes at the year end Christmas party.