2012-10-10 Board of Ethics minutes

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Motion and vote: Mr. Henricks moved to approve the order as drafted, Mr. Hisashima seconded the motion, and all members voted aye. c. Petition No. 2012-03: Informal hearing of petition alleging violations of Section 2-83 of the Ethics Code when County employees are allowed to attend union meetings, on County time, in which political campaigning takes place. MR. DILL: This petition was filed and initially heard at the last meeting, and we voted to schedule an informal hearing on this matter. We also requested quite a bit of information from counsel and Mary. Thank you. I received quite a bit of information. MS. SCHOEN: Mr. Chair, if I may just interrupt. I did—part of what was provided to you was two State of Hawai‘i Ethics Commission opinions, and I’m not sure if the Board members had a chance to review that. I did send it to you, I think it was yesterday, but if there are any discussions regarding legal matters, I’d prefer that we go into executive session. I just wanted to state that. MR. DILL: There’s quite a bit of information, and just speaking personally as Chair, I didn’t get a chance to review those previous judgments and opinions on that. I did get a chance to look briefly at the collective bargaining agreements, and it was made clear I believe in Fire and Police, in the bargaining agreements, that this type of activity was specifically not allowed. Is that correct? MR. HENRICKS: Only them. MR. DILL: Yeah. But apparently UPW, HGEA was - MR. HENRICKS: Silent. MR. DILL: I haven’t been able to look at the other stuff, but I agree. Why don’t we-- MR. HENRICKS: --Mr. Chairman, can I make a motion, please? MR. DILL: Sure. MR. HENRICKS: In essence what’s occurred here is I think we’re stuck in a very, very narrow legal matter. That’s where I see it, anyways. It’s very, very narrow and a very, very complex legal matter we got ourselves caught up in. And we have just got some input from the attorney general as to what she sees--some of those cases that may be relevant to that legal matter, and I’ve just received those cases so I haven’t been able to go over them carefully. So therefore what I would request is I would request a continuance to allow me to go over that legal matter, because it’s going to come down to a legal issue, as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve got to resolve that legal issue in my mind before I can go forward. So knowing that, I’d like to ask for a continuance. So I make a move that we continue to next time to go over the legal matters that are before this Board.