2005-10-12 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular mc

Home

I took the liberty of contacting the County Clerk's office and informing them of the complaint, or the petition, and asking them to take action to comply with the lobbyist registration, so, the reason that Mr. Smith and Mr. Yoshimoto are here is they are updating the forms and they are also updating procedures to notify people who —they are looking at putting a notice on the agendas, having a lobbyist registration form on the table where the public signs up to speak, and then the other part of that is that the law is broader than just the County Council. This could also apply to the Planning Commission, to Board of Appeals actions, possibly Board of Water Supply. So we are going to be —once they have revised those forms, we'll be taking them and distributing them to other County departments and agencies so they're available when members of the public show up and sign up to testify on matters that the Boards and Commissions are administering. And on behalf of our office, I'd like to thank Mr. Frankel for bringing that to our attention. CHAIR: Well I second that, and thanks for the initiative in and getting the action moving on this. Clearly, that's missing piece there. I have a question, it's actually stuff like —who is a lobbyist, for the definition? BLT: The definition, and I think this is where Mr. Fuke has sent a letter to you. The definition in the County Code of a lobbyist is found in Section 2- 91.3(a), subsection 6. A lobbyist is defined as any individual engaged for pay or other consideration who spends more than five hours in any month or $275 in any six - month period for the purpose of attempting to influence legislative or administrative action by communicating or urging others to communicate with public officials. There are a couple of exemptions within the Code for what a lobbyist isif someone's testifying on their own behalf, does not have to register as a lobbyist. Federal, State, or County officials testifying in their official capacity do not have to register. Elected officials, again in their official capacity, do not have to register. And newspapers who publish editorials or are taking a position on issues and urging passage or defeat, they are not required to register as a lobbyist. And any attorney authorized to practice law, who's representing a client's interest, he is not required—he or she is not required to register. And the other people are —when an agency or Council invites someone to come and testify on a particular matter because of their special expertise in any area, and so they're there at the invitation —they don't have to register. CHAIR: It pretty well covers a lot of things- BLT: If you want this in writing, I can do it, but I looked at Mr. Fuke's letter, I looked at the law, and it seems clear to me that—because Mr. Fuke, as I understand his job—he does spend time attempting to influence legislative or administrative action by communicating with the County Council, with the Planning Commission, that that comes under the definition, because the definition is fairly broad. I know that Mr. Fuke thinks of it as he was hired to process an application, but part of that is communication and urging people to try and vote in favor of that, so I would believe that my evaluation of the Code and the language, and also I did look at codes from other jurisdictions, I did look at the lobbyist requirements 5