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Council tries to make progress on ethics ordinance
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By Allison Cross
The City of Monticello met last week in hopes of making progress on both the ethics and
procurement ordinances.
The ethics ordinance, which will govern situations such as conflicts of interest and use of
city property, etc, is still halted. However, the council made progress by coming to an
agreement that they still have a lot of work to do and it won’t happen overnight.
The council has tabled the ethics ordinance discussion on several occasions because
members have expressed that it’s too important to make a decision lightly. In the last
council meeting, they tabled the discussion because they wanted more insight from the
Kentucky League of Cities (KLC), which had originally provided them with the new ethics
ordinance model as a starting point.
COUNCIL GETS ADVICE FROM KLC
During the meeting, Chris Johnson, an attorney with KLC, spoke to the council about the
importance of an ethics ordinance and what all it needs to include.
Johnson said most cities adopted an ethics ordinance in 1994 and only sporadically made
changes over the years. The City of Monticello also adopted theirs in 1994 and made an
amendment in 2007, according to Council Member Allan Hopper.
Johnson said there are certain things that an ethics ordinance has to have including
standards of conduct, a nepotism policy, financial statement reporting, and the
establishment of an ethics board.
While the city’s current ordinance is technically compliant, according to Johnson, he said
would recommend at least adding sections on “domestic partnership” and social media.
“Between 1994 and now, it’s a whole different ballgame,” Johnson said. “As elected officials
and city employees we have to be mindful of social media. There’s also language (changes)
including the addition of a ‘domestic partner’ as a family member. Families look a little bit
different now.”
He continued that there are some areas that are worth some consideration including
voting on issues where there are conflicts of interest. He suggested a “withdrawal from
participation” section.
“That’s a situation where if you know you have a conflict of interest, or if there is some
issue why you should not be casting a vote, you have to announce on the record that you
are not going to participate in (it),” Johnson said.
He continued that council members shouldn’t just abstain from voting, they should leave
the room altogether. He explained further that in Kentucky there is an attorney general
opinion that if you just “abstain,” you are technically voting with the majority, whatever that
may be; and If you withdraw from participation and leave the room, you aren’t technically
voting either way.
Johnson also brought up outside employment, receiving gifts, use of city property, and
misuse of confidential information. He repeated, while these are all good things to include,
it’s up to council.
“It’s up to you as elected officials to determine what’s best for the city,” Johnson said.
COUNCIL COMMENTS
Mayor Kenny Catron looked to the council for any questions or concerns they had.
At first, the council discussed the possibility of keeping the current ethics ordinance instead
of adopting a new one. Council Member Jamie Reagan suggested the possibility of keeping
what they currently have and just adding in what we need. Hopper agreed.
“We have to make sure we are covered now, and then we got more time to look at what
else we need or want to do,” Hopper said.
Council Member Allen Vaughn disagreed and suggested that the current ethics ordinance
has a lot that is missing compared to the new ordinance.
“Are we satisfied with minimum requirements when it comes to ethics?,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn wanted to go through some of the provisions because he felt like the public had a
right to know what the council was considering.
He said there are several items that are listed in the new ordinance that are either not in
the old or are only briefly mentioned. Those items include conflict of interest situations,
receiving gifts, withdrawal from participation, use of city property, nepotism, misuse of
confidential information, political solicitation, and much more.
“To take this (old ordinance) and just say we are going to add a family member change and
a social media section to something that doesn’t cover any of this… To me it is saying that
ethics are not important to us. Accountability is not important to us. Corruption is not
important to us. That’s what that would be saying, in my opinion,” Vaughn said.
Once Vaughn had shared his thoughts, Hopper and Reagan had a few questions for
Johnson about financial disclosures and business conflicts of interest. Johnson told them
that the new ordinance is just a model and they can adapt it as needed.
“The model is not one size fits all,” Johnson said. “You do have to tailor it to fit what is best
for your community.”
Council Member Cody Dishman suggested they table the discussion to the next meeting.
Vaughn suggested that they gradually go through the old & new ordinances and go section
by section. Then they can decide what they need and don’t need. The council voted
unanimously to table the discussion.
COUNCIL MOVES FORWARD WITH PROCUREMENT PROCESSES
The council was able to start moving forward with the procurement ordinance last week.
They held the first reading of two separate ordinances.
The first ordinance is establishing that the council will use the state’s threshold for when
they are required to bid for purchases. The state threshold is $40,000. The city’s current
threshold is $2,500. They wanted to make a change because the bidding process is both
time consuming and costly for the city.
The council went back and forth in previous meetings about the threshold and whether or
not they should make such a wide change. They landed on adding a quote process to the
mix, which led to another ordinance for small purchases.
The second ordinance states “Small purchases of up to $10,000 may be approved by the
mayor so long as they are accommodated in the budget. Purchases over $10,000 up to the
procurement threshold of $40,000 will require 3 quotes whenever possible and must be
accommodated in the budget.”
Vaughn spoke up and had concerns about the words “whenever possible” and felt that was
too vague.
City Clerk Alison Pyles said the reasoning behind that is in reference to supplier availability.
There may be items that only have one supplier, so getting three quotes wouldn’t be
possible.
The council decided to change the wording to “require 3 quotes whenever feasible in terms
of available sources, which efforts shall be documented.”
Vaughn also suggested that the word “accommodated” should be changed to
“appropriated.” Since these were first readings, no vote was required.
Present at the meeting were Mayor Kenny Catron and Council Members Allen Vaughn,
Jamie Reagan, Knox Bertram, Tim Pyles, Allan Hopper, and Cody Dishman. The Monticello
City Council meets on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month at 6 pm at City Hall.
Meetings are open to the public a
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