Brittany Kelley
KYLE — The Kyle Charter Review Commission discussed previous recommendations and changes to the Ethics Commission, including a permanent three-year term, at its May 12 meeting.
Beginning with items to approve from its previous meeting, city attorney Aimee Alcorn-Reed presented additional language to Section 12.03 Interest in City Contract. It was noted that, due to the language of the section, a city employee may not be able to sell their land to the city in the event it was needed for infrastructure. So, she added the following language that the San Marcos city charter had: “These provisions shall not apply to acquisitions of property by the city as a result of eminent domain proceedings or the threat of eminent domain proceedings. These provisions shall not apply to purchases from the city of land, materials, supplies or services that are made available for purchase to all members of the public.”
Commissioner Lila Knight feared that the last sentence could be used to abuse power in the future. Alcorn-Reed, in response, explained that she would at least like to leave the portion regarding land in the language because she felt that it is reasonable if the city wanted to buy her house that she is selling on the market.
“I don’t, sorry,” said Knight.
Under the suggestion of commissioner Alex Villalobos, Alcorn-Reed will add language to allow the purchase under eminent domain, but require disclosure in the annual bench report.
Because Knight was uncomfortable with the section and Villalobos, too, agreed that it could be more clear, Alcorn-Reed will bring back new language at the next meeting.
The commission also opted to change the newly-added 12.06 Limitation on City Council Future Employment with the City from waiting one year before accepting a city job to two years.
Sections 11.11 Election Required and 11.12 Contracts Concerning City Property were placed in Article 13 General Provisions in a 5-1 vote, after a dissenting vote and continued stressing from Knight to place them in Article 1 Incorporation, Form of Government and Powers of the City.
All other changes recommended at the April 28 meeting were approved.
Following this item, Alcorn-Reed presented research of what other cities do for its Ethics Commission and the possible charter provisions related to it after discussion of Kyle’s current method of appointments being inherently political at the April 28 meeting. Currently, the city council members appoint a specific person to serve on the Ethics Commission, and if the council member were to leave, the commissioner would leave, as well.
“Three of the cities really don’t have any specific requirements on ethics or conflicts of interest in the charter and then, four of them don’t specifically require a code of ethics, but despite that, all 10 of these cities have a code of ethics. They all have some sort of commission that reviews them,” said Alcorn-Reed. “The most similar language to ours is Leander … and San Antonio is the only one that requires the appointment of the [Ethics] Commission in the same manner that we do.”
San Antonio’s nominated Ethics Commission members, however, were not coterminous with city council members. So, if their city council member was not reelected, then the commission members would still serve, unlike Kyle, where they would be removed.
After reviewing the benchmarking, commissioner David Glickler noted that he felt comfortable leaving the appointment as is, but that if the majority wanted to move forward with complete terms, similar to San Antonio, that he would support this, as well.
This being said, Glickler stated that he is against the proposed application process as mentioned at the previous meeting, as it “becomes dangerous.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,” said Villalobos. “It allows that individual to be independent and do their job as commissioned by the committee and there’s not going to be any influence either way.”
Ultimately, the commission chose to have a fixed three-year term, not coterminous with the council member who appointed them, for a maximum of six years, with no partial terms. Alcorn-Reed stated that this might be difficult for staff to keep track of.
“I’m sorry for staff, but y’all are pretty well paid and I have total confidence in [city secretary] Jennifer [Kirkland] that she can keep track of this,” said Knight.
So, with the proposed language, a council member would appoint an Ethics Commission member for a three-year term and if that member leaves after 1.5 years, then the council member would appoint a new individual for a three-year term.
To avoid potential abuse, both Alcorn-Reed and Glickler decided to add a clause that stated if an Ethics Commission member resigned within 90 days of the council members term ending, the seat must remain vacant until the council seat is refilled.
Additionally, Alcorn-Reed stated that other cities occasionally hire independent counsel, but do not require it for every issue.
“It’s nice to have an independent [counsel] look at these things and attorneys may disagree a lot, so it’s nice to be able to bump ideas off each other, too, if we disagree and work together to try to make things more clear,” Alcorn-Reed explained.
In Section 12.02 Acceptance of Gifts, “No officer or employee of the city shall accept directly or indirectly, any gift, favor or privilege exceeding a nominal value, or employment, from any utility, corporation, person or entity having or seeking a franchise or contract with, or doing business with, the city,” but nominal value isn’t clear. So, Alcorn-Reed will work on requiring a nominal amount for both a single gift and an annual amount, in cases of marriage or holidays for those that were friends or close prior to working at the city.
“The clause I liked [in] Pflugerville, it just seems that clause might remedy some of this credit card crap,” said commissioner Diane Hervol, citing Section 11.05 of Pflugerville’s city charter, which states “At a minimum, the code of ethics shall include (1) standards of conduct related to public administration and offenses against public administration, as set out in Chapter 36, Penal Code; (2) a travel and expense policy regulating the expenditure of public funds for travel, conferences, and entertainment; and (3) restrictions on city officials’ or employees’ serving as surety for the performance of any person doing business with the city or as surety for any city officer or employee required to make a surety bond.”
According to Alcorn-Reed, this language would include adding Texas Penal Code Chapter 36 Bribery and Corrupt Influence, a travel and expense policy and surety issues. She feels as though chapter 36 is probably included indirectly in the current Code of Ethics, so she wouldn’t mind adding it, but that the travel and expense policy is not included in the Kyle Code of Ethics. So, Hervol and the commissioners would have to decide if they want to add this at a later meeting.
“It’s not defining what the travel expense policy would be, it’s just requiring council to put that in the code of ethics,” said Alcorn-Reed.
The commission also voted to cancel the May 26 meeting, due to the Memorial Day holiday, and to reschedule it to June 5. Alcorn-Reed will bring new language at the next meeting for all recommendations and discussions.
