Board of Ethics

The Board of Ethics of the City of Mount Vernon Minutes of the meeting of June 15, 2023 The meeting was called to order by the Chair at 6:37 p.m. All ve Board members were physically present in a room at City Hall. These members were Curtis Brewington, Chair; Ed Byrnes, Secretary; John McGlynn, Vice-Chair; Leslie Alpert and Blair Hoplight. Beresford Granston, who was appointed to the Board by the City Council on June 14, 2023 was also present; he has not been sworn into o ce yet so he would not be able to vote on any motions that might be made tonight. City Clerk Tanesia Walters was physically present throughout the meeting except for the period when the Board went into a con dential session. A motion was made and seconded to approve the proposed minutes for 5/11/23. Approved 5-0. Curtis asked Ed to report on the status of the Financial Disclosure Statements (FDSs) for calendar years 2020, 2021, and 2022. Ed reported that full compliance for calendar years 2020 and 2021 was nally achieved, and that Curtis and he began the review yesterday (6/14/23) of FDSs for calendar year 2022 and the review of approximately 35 FDSs have been completed so far. Discussion about the City Code §24-11 A discussion was held regarding a proposed recommendation that had been circulated to all Board members within the past few weeks. This proposal makes the recommendation to the City Council that they amend the City Code §24-11 to speci cally list all city positions which are required to le FDSs. Upon completion of this discussion, a motion was made and seconded that the proposed recommendation be adopted and that Curtis would send the recommendation to all City Council members. The vote in favor of the motion was 5-0. Discussion about the date for the Board’s next scheduled meeting One observation was made that, pursuant to the City Code, the Board is required to have annual elections of the o cers of Chair and Secretary, and that the Board’s Rules do not allow for an o cer to serve beyond three consecutive terms. Also, the terms of the o cers end on July 31, and since Ed is now near the end of his third consecutive term as Secretary, the election of a new Secretary would have to occur no later than the end of July. Therefore, the Board concluded that it would have to have a Board meeting sometime in July in order to fi fi fi fi ffi ffi ffi fi ffi accomplish the election of o cers. The Board came to the consensus that we would have a Board meeting on Thursday, July 13 at 6:30 p.m. Discussion about the City Council’s proposed amendment to the City Code that a Special Counsel be appointed in every case where an ethical complaint is made against either the mayor or the Corporation Counsel A discussion was held about the Special Counsel idea. A proposed response to City Council President Danielle Browne’s June 13 email at 8:04 a.m. was circulated within the past few days centered on the topic of Ms. Browne’s comments about the proposed City Council amendment that a Special Counsel be appointed in every situation where an ethical complaint is brought against either the mayor or the Corporation Counsel. Members were stating that it would not be necessary that a Special Counsel be appointed in every instance where an ethical complaint was led against the mayor or Corporation Counsel because not every Board investigation of an ethical complaint would require legal advice. It was pointed out that the Board has conducted investigations of ethical complaints where no legal issues were presented which required any legal advice. It was pointed out that it would be an unnecessary expense for the city to pay for the services of an outside counsel if there were no issues in the Board investigation that required any legal advice. It was also pointed out that when a Special Counsel is appointed in every case it would be unfair to the mayor or the Corporation Counsel if the word somehow got out, perhaps by some sta member, that a Special Counsel was investigating the mayor or the Corporation Counsel. At this point in the discussion, City Council President Danielle Browne appeared on the screen and shared her thoughts on the topic. She stated that she had been listening to the discussion via Zoom. After a discussion among the members and Ms. Browne, which was mainly centered on the issue that a Special Counsel would not be needed in every single case, Ms. Browne stated there would be some revision to the City Council’s proposed amendment about Special Counsel and that she would send those revisions to the Board for our consideration. Ms. Browne stated that she would then welcome any of our comments that we might make to the revisions. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Browne left the meeting. A motion was then made to go into a con dential session One of the members requested that the Board go into a con dential session, and a motion was made and seconded that the Board would do that. A vote was taken, and it was unanimous (5-0) that the Board would immediately go into such a fi fi fi ff ffi  con dential session. The Zoom recording stopped while the Board was in the con dential session, and Ms. Walters left the meeting room. Con dential session All con dential matters have been redacted in order to allow this version of the minutes to be available to the public. The Board decided to end the con dential session, and Ms. Walters returned to the room. A motion was made and seconded that the Board go out of the con dential session and return to a public session. The motion was approved by a unanimous vote. Public session resumes All members agreed to end the meeting at approximately 8:10 p.m. Prepared by Ed Byrnes, Secretary fi fi fi fi fi fi