2008-01-09 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular Session

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ASHIDA: Yes, I —Mary, did you hand out the draft this morning? I prepared a draft informal advisory at the request of the commission, or the Board, last time. When we met last month, the Board had indicated that you wanted to proceed with an informal advisory concerning the mail -outs within the six - month —or that an interpretation of the Board of the current Code of Ethics could be that the mail -outs would be prohibited in a six -month period of time. Yesterday at the Council committee meetings, as you may have read in the newspaper, the ordinance amending the Code pertaining to fines —that passed out of Committee yesterday favorably. The representation made by Mr. Hoffmann yesterday was that a similar bill that he is working on concerning the mail -outs will probably hit the committee later this month in January. Mr. Hookano, is that correct? HOOKANO: Yes, that's correct. ASHIDA: So that being said, these are your options. You could take a look at this draft and proceed with issuing an informal advisory concerning the existing Code, but that's really not advisable at this point, because if the Council is going to go in and actually amend the ordinance —the Code of Ethics —we're going to have new law on it anyway. So this —what I've drafted up may in that event technically be moot or not applicable. So you know, it's up to you how you want to proceed, but at this point I would just wait to see what the Council does. The second committee meetings is this month —I think they're on January 23rd. It's a very notable date in history, by the way. And I would wait to see what they do. You know, you could defer this until next month to see what the Council does, or you can talk about the draft today. It's up to you. CHAIR: With all due respect, I believe that at our last meeting we did issue an informal advisory opinion based on this, and it carried by a majority vote. And we were supposed to have the final communication signed, and are you asking us now to reconsider? ASHIDA: No. I'm saying it's up to you. But all I'm saying is, after January 23rd of this month, and then assume that there are changes made to the Code at the committee meeting on the 23r`' then it will proceed to the full Council's first meeting in February. . And if the Mayor then signs it into law, it changes —this may become moot, because the language of the underlying ordinance will change. CHAIR: I personally would like to just go ahead and move forward with what we have and see what the County Council does in the future. And I think that's what we voted on in our last meeting to begin with. So- ASHIDA: - -That was made at the time, though, that it was not clear whether the Council would move forward with the second of the two initiatives, because I think —Mr. Hookano, you correct me if I'm wrong —but back then, you said that the $500 fine payment would move forward, but at that point not yet the second bill concerning the mail -outs (inaudible). HOOKANO: Well, it was just would depend on their —the drafting and the language, as long as it goes through, you know, the (inaudible) it would go up to committee any way. But just the time line wasn't exactly set. 2