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CHAIR: - -Thank you -- <br />PRANKE: As opposed to normal. First I want to thank you all. The Board of Ethics <br />has increased —has improved its ability to be accepted by most of the <br />general public immensely over the last few years. And I appreciate the job <br />that you folks are doing. I want to talk a little bit about the complaint <br />concerning a letter written by Ms. Siracusa, because I believe that it's <br />probably—we talked about this before —but I think this is probably not an <br />ethics issue. I don't think that expressing one's opinion is the—in a letter <br />to the editor—violates any portion of the ethics law, because she wasn't <br />seeking any gain for herself or for anyone else. And pretty much—that's <br />pretty much—that's what ethics is, other than not being able to lobby for <br />several years after you've left office as an officer of the County. So I <br />don't believe that this is the proper forum for the complaint. There may <br />be something to do with the Office of Information Practices, with the <br />Sunshine Law, if it were to be discovered that this was a way of <br />communicating with other commissioners on the Planning Commission <br />about something. But I doubt that that's even enforceable, because I don't <br />think that the County or even the State can write a law that would override <br />your federal civil rights to be able to communicate. So it's probably not <br />something that you even need to consider, I think. And finally —and that's <br />all I have to say about that. I just don't believe that it's proper to come <br />before the Board of Ethics. And finally, I wanted to talk a little aboutI <br />know that you're going to talk about the Ethics Guide and things that are <br />ethics. As I said, there's only two things that I can find in the ethics <br />Code of Ethics —that really apply to much. And one of them is that you <br />not act in some way where you get —that a person who is an officer or <br />employee of the County not act in some way that allows them to have <br />some sort of gain, either financial or otherwise, or that allows someone <br />else to have unwarranted gain. And of course, the part about not being a <br />lobbyist after - -for a year after serving. One thing that's not in the Ethics <br />Code that I always thought should be, and I'm bringing this forward to <br />you now in case you have a chance to consider it, is that there's no <br />provision in there for someone who would deliberately lie to someone else <br />either—on an official basis. And I've always thought that that's pretty <br />much the basis of having a transparent government, is that you be able to <br />believe that the person is telling you —what the person is telling you is <br />truthful. And because that's not in there, there's been a couple of <br />instances in the past where ethics violations have been brought forward <br />concerning this but never went very far. I would hope that you get a <br />chance to look at that kind of thing. We all know that there are going to <br />be times when people give out erroneous information, but I do believe that <br />as a board you can tell the difference between a deliberate lie and <br />somebody who erroneously gives out information. That's all I have to <br />say, and thank you very much. If you have any questions, I'd be glad -- <br />CHAIR: Thank you for coming in, Mr. Pranke. <br />2 <br />