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Board of Ethics <br />Minutes of Regular Session <br />January 10, 2007 <br />that and you could ask Wayne "Is that true, did you go to that dinner ?" But in court there would <br />be objections flying, inadmissible, hearsay. <br />KS: I think the issue of precedent, precedent has a place. It has been codified in legal <br />court room things. The use of precedent is something lawyers use everyday. <br />WJ: And we are not lawyers. <br />KS: We are not and I don't want to be bound. <br />WJ: We are not. <br />RW: By some advisory opinion from previous years.... <br />WJ: Perhaps we should be looking at a time limit to dispose of them. <br />BLT: Even the State Ethics Commission has changed their position on issues, because <br />so many years ago they said you can't do this. Twenty years went by and they said we are going <br />to revisit that issue. In light of the changes in this, this, and this, we don't think that earlier <br />decision should govern anymore, and hereby reject the earlier opinion and are issuing a new one. <br />I have seen the State Ethics Commission do that. That is because something is initially, it has <br />gone both ways. Once, where there was something that they thought was permissible, and then <br />years later they said you know what, on second thought that really does open up a can of worms <br />so we are going to say no, you shouldn't do that. There was one, I think it was real property tax <br />appraisers and what they had to do, and they changed position in terms of what they could do <br />outside employment. When they started looking at it they said we think that maybe we were too <br />strict. Or because there are all these other procedural safeguards and now it is okay. Times have <br />changed, I've seen ethic opinions change. <br />AL: So maybe we should think about how long some of this stuff needs to be kept and <br />do we have the authority to say.... <br />WJ: I think we should wait to listen to what Lincoln has to say, and there is a motion <br />to defer. <br />AL: Oh, did we make a motion to defer? <br />RW: I make a motion to defer. <br />WJ: I thought you already did. <br />RW: Alright. <br />WJ: So is there a call for the question? <br />7 <br />