2005-10-12 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular mc

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WJ: Aye. KI: Aye. KK: Aye. CHAIR: The Chair votes aye. Motion is carried. Thank you very much. FUKE: Thank you. CHAIR: We appreciate the information and the education. Next item on the agenda. I'm going to reverse so we're going to move up to number "b" in New Business, 4b, Petition 2005 -06, David Kimo Frankel seeks a decision regarding interpretations of the law as it relates to financial disclosure forms, informing the public and government officials of the interpretation, and better guidance on the form. Please refer to Mr. Frankel's letter dated September 7, I believe. WJ: That's 05? CHAIR: Yeah. We're on Petition 5, Petition 2005 -06. Numero 6. Okay, David Frankel's letter of September 7, inquiry written pursuant to the County Charter, Section 451 [sic.: Section 14 -5(a)] which authorizes the Board of Ethics to interpret the Code of Ethics for members of the public. Disclosure—financial disclosure forms. See that letter? Okay, and we have supplementing that a letter from Mr. Les Kondo, right, Director of Office Information Practices. FRANKEL: I don't think that's CHAIR: I'm wrong. That's not —this is a stand alone issue here, a stand alone issue here. Now we, members of the public, we do review financial disclosure forms and Mr. Frankel has concerns in your own words, which somewhere, as you know, were- FRANKEL: - -sure. You know, I looked through the forms that were upstairs , and I was struck by two things. It doesn't appear that folks are including their spouses in the disclosure form, and the form that people fill out, to me is not particularly consistent with the law. And my interpretation of the law is that you are supposed to include your spouse's information on that, and that is the interpretation of the State Ethics Commission. The second issue is that of mutual funds, whether that information has to be disclosed. I think the law is pretty clear that it does. I think as a policy matter, that kind of information is not necessary, but, you know, we're operating with what the law is, and because the forms are not clear now, just to give you a little aside, when I was on the Environmental Management Commission, I had to fill out the disclosure form. The first year or two, I didn't include that information and reading the application, what struck me is that it wasn't asked. And then after a year or two, I looked at—instead of looking at the application I looked at the law, and the law, it was very clear to me that that information is to be provided, so I went ahead and corrected, butI mean, it's very unclear to people filling out the application that they're supposed to include 20