I am in favor of ethical behavior and feel all public servants should be held to a higher standard. The  ethics policy, established in 1972, stated it was a minimum standard of behavior the People of Yorba Linda should expect from their elected officials, appointed officials and staff. It spoke to many of the same things the current policy addresses: conflict of interest, gifts, use of public property, and obligations to citizens, to name a few.  I support ethical behavior but have philosophical and procedural differences with the new ordinance. Unfortunately, when this ordinance was proposed, the Majority  Council would not allow votes on the separate sub-sections of the ethics code; it was an all or nothing approach. Since I had reservations about portions of the code, I could not vote for a law I believe to be flawed.
I view an ethics code as a living statement reflecting the values and direction of the Community. I would have preferred a process to include the community, staff, Commissioners and the Council to cooperatively develop an ethics code, rather than a dictate from Majority Council.

To view the new ethics ordinance, go to:  http://www.ci.yorba-linda.ca.us/~ci26/images/stories/pdf/Clerk/Agendas/StaffReports9-30-09.pdf

Issues I had with the New Ethics Code by Subsection:

Section 2.44.010 No solicitations from City Contractors:
I agree, any contractor that the Council gives contract approval, should be exempt from solicitations. There is another level of contractors in the city that are hired through various City Department Heads, many of whom are YL residents. For example: those who teach parks and recreation classes or a hardware store owner from whom the City purchases supplies. These could be considered contractors and a council member could accidentally ask or accept a donation without knowing they had a relationship with the City at that level.

Section 2.44.020 Prohibitions against accepting campaign contributions for 12 months after approving a permit or decision.
I agree. This section deals with accepting donations, $250 or more from an applicant if a Council vote is taken on their project. BUT this prohibition did not include individuals who benefit from a “no vote” to a project. There is a potential to “buy” a vote from either direction. This Council did not want this included since two of them had accepted $1000 from an individual where their “no” vote favorably affected his position. Mayor Anderson returned his “donation” after holding onto it for two weeks and he is the author of this ethics policy.

Section 2.44.030 Disqualification from acting upon a permit or decision if a campaign contribution was accepted within a previous 12-month period.
I agree although a year is a long time to expect a decision to be affected by a $250 donation.

Section 2.44.040 Prohibitions against seeking endorsements from city employees, commissioners, labor associations affiliated with city contractors.
I agree, employees should be exempt from solicitation. I do not see the harm in asking a commissioner for endorsement as long as they do not feel coerced. I do not disagree with excluding labor associations from solicitation but I feel ALL labor associations should be excluded including Sheriffs, District Attorneys, etc.

Section 2.44.050 Adoption of a code of conduct for elected and appointed officials
I agree but it seems silly to pass a law that says we will do something in the future. This majority Council has broken many of their proposed conduct rules including:  staff bashing, Consultant bashing, campaigning from the dais, disregarding public votes to fit their own political agendas, and the list goes on. We have had more staff quit because of this Councils behavior and yet it is not an infraction in their current new code.

Section 2.44.060 Adoption of a “Whistle blower” Policy
I think this was the ONE thing we should have done first and immediately. This would afford staff protection if they are asked by their supervisors or Council to do something they consider unethical. This would allow them to report the concern without fear of reprisals. Again, it seems silly to pass a law that says we will do something in the future. Why not now?

Section 2.44.070 Mandatory AB1234 training for all city staff, executives and appointed and elected officials
I agree with the state law of bi-annual training. I do not feel it is necessary to have all commissioners, Council members, Commissioners and staff take the training annually. In addition, I do not believe the Mayor has the authority to ask other Council members to notify them when they are doing the training independently. The Mayor runs the meeting and is the ceremonial figurehead for the Council but has no more or less power than any other elected Council member. We do not answer to each other, we answer to the People of Yorba Linda.

Section 2.44.080 Prohibition against closed door ad hoc committee meetings of the City council and Commissions
I agree as long as this does not violate personnel rules.

Section 2.44.090 Taping of all closed session meetings of the City Council
This section requires all closed sessions of the City Council to be taped. I disagree with this. This places the City in a vulnerable position when we discuss items regarding potential litigation.  Our City Attorney has also us advised against adopting this provision. There are undefined thresholds that would allow the tapes to be released. Additionally, the tapes could be release with the vote of three Council members. Although the majority Council approved this ordinance, I believe the threshold to release the tapes should have been raised to a super-majority of four to avoid a simple majority council from acting inappropriately for political reasons rather than what is best for the Community.

Section 2.44.100 Prohibitions against the misuse of City Resources or staff involvement in elections
I agree. I have observed the Majority Council abusing this section by working around the ordinance.
Section 2.44.0110 Enforcement
With this ordinance, I feel it is easy to make a mistake and then be vilified for political purposes. Who is responsible to track and enforce this policy? What is the threshold of the infraction and what is the punishment? This is not defined. It has a weak enforcement statement about hiring special council and possibly referring infractions to the DA. Larger items, like misuse of City funds would already be corrected with our current laws.

I do believe in transparency and making sure the community is informed. What has been extremely frustrating is how this Council espouses transparency and then finds exceptions for their own behavior. I do not believe an ethical code makes you ethical. Either you are ethical or you are not and should be judged by your behavior.

We are all in favor of ethical behavior and expect our elected representatives to hold ourselves to higher standard than others in the community. We are expected to set the example for the community. Yet, given the state of our political system, people are eager to try anything to get elected officials” under control”. That is a very easy thing to say. But, how do you legislate ethical behavior and who monitors it? How do you begin to define ethical behavior? Our idea of ethical behavior is a personal choice, defined by our own moral compass and intentions. You have already seen during our Council discussions,  we have different ideas of what is ethical or not.

My opinion is that we have an ethics statement defining the behavior our elected officials. This statement was further refined with a list of what ethical behavior should look like in our community. This is the starting point of the behaviors we as elected officials should use in conducting ourselves in the publics interest. If we are to consider adding additional specific rules to this statement, where do we stop? And as someone finds a way around this new list, do we just keep adding additional rules until it is unmanageable? Is this what we want our City Government doing, controlling behavior? Or should the electeds be responsible to understand the ethical expectations of the City through its existing policy and be responsible to the constituents?
I would love to hear your thoughts