One of the major issues addressed at that meeting was if the oversight process for a new ethics code would be handled by the city attorney’s office, as is the current practice, or by an independent committee free from potential influence of elected officials. The city attorney is appointed by the five city commissioners.

At the March 26th meeting, the Ethics Panel heard testimony from the former executive director of the Florida Commission on Ethics, Phil Claypool. His comments were summarized in the minutes of the meeting as follows:

In order to be independent and impartial, Mr. Claypool indicated a separate ethics board comprised of citizens was needed, and that this board would then hire an executive director to oversee the day-to-day operations.

At the same meeting, City Attorney Shelley’s remarks on the issue were summarized in the minutes as follows:

City Attorney Shelley noted that internal discussions occurred relative to where within in the City government an Ethics Officer could be placed in order to mitigate any conflicts and to prevent influence by the City Commissioners or Appointed Officials. City Attorney Shelley indicated one proposal was to have the Ethics Officer be appointed by unanimous decision of 2, 3, or all of the Appointed Officials. However, City Attorney Shelley questioned whether or not there would always be some subtle amount of influence present upon an Ethics Officer in this model. ( Hear the audio.)

City Auditor Sam McCall, who has since retired, spoke at the meeting on the subject of influence from the elected officials and stated that he felt independent decision makers would be needed to implement ethics rules that applied to the elected officials.

Mr. McCall’s comments were not included in the minutes of the March 26th meeting. In an attempt to verify specific comments, Tallahassee Reports requested the audio recording from the meeting. Tallahassee Reports was told that a portion of the audio from the March 26th meeting was accidentally deleted. The portion deleted includes Mr. McCall’s remarks.

Why is this important?

Since the March 26th meeting, City Attorney Shelley seems to have changed his original position on the need for independence in the ethics process. In fact, during the last meeting Mr. Shelley indicated that the city attorney’s office could maintain the independence required to implement the new ethics code without influence from elected officials. This is different from the view expressed by Shelley at the March 26th meeting.

The Panel members rely on minutes of the meeting to clarify points and make decisions. Given Mr. Shelley’s change in position, Mr. McCall’s comments would be a valuable source of information. However, his comments are not currently part of the record.

Tallahassee Reports is waiting on the minutes from the last meeting to verify the exact comments made by Mr. Shelley.

The panel’s research includes gathering information from around the state on how other cities address ethics, listening to testimony from citizens, former city commissioners, and the former Executive Director of the Florida Commission on Ethics.

The ultimate goal of the panel is to make recommendations to the full city commission sometime in June of this year. The panel was created to investigate the need for improved ethics rules by a unanimous vote of the City Commission last year.

The Ethics Advisory Panel meetings have been structured to have each member address one of the “focus areas” that was determined to be relevant by the panel. The panel has identified 10 such focus areas and they include financial disclosure, procurement practices, business conflicts, the revolving door and the establishment of an oversight authority.

While no votes have been taken, the discussions during the meetings indicate a level of consensus on a number of important issues. Panel members seem to agree on the following: (1) a more comprehensive financial disclosure form is needed for city commissioner’s, (2) the forms should be on the city website for easy access, (3) the establishment of an ethics hotline, and (4) the city is doing a good job with ethics training and enforcement for city employees.

Given the fact the panel sees fit to make policy recommendations that go beyond what is currently in place for elected officials, the next important issue to resolve is who will have ultimate oversight authority.

The current oversight authority rests with the city attorney, who is appointed by the city commission. The alternative approach that has been discussed is the establishment of an independent board that would appoint an ethics officer who would be responsible for implementing the ethics rules for elected officials.

During previous meetings, the former director of the Florida Commission on Ethics, Phil Claypool, told the panel that for ethics reform to be taken seriously by the public, the oversight authority must be independent of influence from City Commissioners.

In addition, appointed officials City Attorney Lew Shelley and Auditor Sam McCall indicated that it would be difficult develop a structure within the City Commission that would allow the oversight authority to be completely free of influence from elected officials.

During last Thursday’s meeting, the agenda called for panel member Lila Jaber to present her views on oversight authority. Ms. Jaber has impressive credentials. She is an attorney, a former Florida Public Service Commissioner and was recently appointed to the City’s Utility Advisory Board by City Manager Anita Favors-Thompson.

The thrust of Ms. Jaber’s recommendation was to “create a formal Ethics Officer position that reports to the City Attorney to address city staff-level issues.” When panel member Brant Copeland asked “what about elected officials”, Ms Jaber recommended “proactive ethics training by an outside consultant” and to leave further responsibility of oversight to the Florida Commission on Ethics. Ms. Jaber stated, while she considered an independent oversight authority, she ultimately concluded such a board would have responsibilities already vested in the Florida Commission on Ethics.

The discussion that followed revealed a consensus for an independent oversight authority, but the need to limit the creation of another bureaucracy that would have unlimited authority. However, as one of the panel members stated, “the devil is in the details.”

It is obvious from the discussions of the panel, that oversight authority is an issue that will ultimately decide the effectiveness of any recommendations made to the City Commission.