2006-08-03 Board of Ethics Minutes Special Meeting kd

Home

RW: And he having already been aware of the State Ethics ruling, I presume. GS: Yes sir, Mr. Chairman, when I looked at the complaint and I thought to myself that I am allowed to send the information out. So I looked at the first one. I couldn't find anything wrong with it, but I sat down with my aide Ashley, and I said that I think maybe there was an inadvertent situation that occurred here. And that is where I was getting to in my explanation, if I am allowed to continue.... RW: Yes. GS: So, when we sent this out, I had personally seen this document and signed it myself. Reviewing it and feeling that there was no impropriety at this particular document... RW: What was the date of that? GS: That's the date of June 6, 2006. RW: Okay. GS: If you reference that one and look at that one and the other mailing, my signature situation is different. That is my explanation. Now come July of this year I had, we had made the website and it was going through some tweaking effort and which, incidentally, we really didn't reference it as apolitical website, it was just an informational website. I don't have anything to do with fundraisers there or any of that nature. It's just primarily the same information, but, I guess with a political stance to it. So when I reviewed it, I believe that there could have been an inadvertent issue there that I didn't catch at the beginning. But wanted to at least address this body so that you know that the minute we discovered this, I felt that rather than go any further we stop the mailing with that reference of website. And I decided that if there was going to be any reference to it from this body, that I should pay and at least acknowledge that if there is an impropriety- - which I believe was inadvertent - -and I don't believe that it was an impropriety, because I think you have to have a motive to do that. My motive was purely to communicate to my constituency. So moving back then, come July, my website finally was finished. And I was on the road at various meetings and my secretary, Linda Swallow said "I've got the second mailing document ready for your approval" and I said okay, go ahead and just read it to me over the phone. And so I was driving, I was on my cell phone. And so she read the whole thing and then she indicated, she said "Please check the... (you know, because everything was the same as the first mailing) but she said "I added, Please check out my website at my Gary safari k.org." RW: Your secretary took up that issue on that? GS: Yeah, she put -- because I had said we needed to have an email address. RW: I see. GS: So, I didn't -- I really did not, as much as I thought about it that day - -I didn't recognize that this was a political website, and that it needed to be at my County email address, there, rather than my website. When I discovered it, that's when we decided that we were going to -- whatever the issue may have been as far as cost and postage type things- -that we would just pay for it out 11