Code of Ethics Adjudicating Body - Regular Meeting

We're gonna call today, May 1 at twenty twenty five board of ethics meeting to order. We do encourage public comment. If you'd like to, participate for public comment via telephone, you will call 94 (951) 826-8688, then you would press 9 to be placed in the queue to speak. Individuals in the queue will be prompt to unmute by pressing 6 to speak, via Zoom. I'll read it the one time.

The link is httpscolon//zoom.us/j/9269699126five. And then you would raise the hand function to speak. And you'll get a on screen message that will prompt you to unmute to speak. Do remember public comments are limited to three minutes. So starting our meeting, pledge of allegiance as usual. Who would like to lead?

Okay.

Thank you, member Vega. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Alrighty. Thank you. No callers in queue.

Thank you. Alright, so first and foremost, we have exciting news for the board. We are introducing our new member, newest member. Is it Kilkenstein? Kilkenstein. Kilkenstein. Okay. Welcome, and thank you for joining us. We're very excited to get our numbers back up a little bit. Don't know if you wanna take a minute to introduce yourself and tell us a little about you and what interested you in Board of Ethics. Sure. To put you on the spot.

Absolutely. Is this on, can you

hear me? Yes, we do.

Okay, great. So just wanna, again, say thank you so much for the warm welcome. I'm really excited to join you all and be here with you. I have a passion for ethics. I think that, you know, there's a lot of things that may not have some strength behind it necessarily with the law, but that there's some things that we definitely need to have accountability around for other behaviors. And so just grateful to be part of this board and excited to learn from all of you and to just see where we can go with this. So thank you.

Wonderful, thank you. All right, so again, we do encourage audience participation. Public comments are limited to those three minutes To comment on any of the matters within the jurisdiction of this board, you're invited to participate in person or call (951) 826-8688. And press 9 to be placed in the queue to speak. Individuals in the queue will be prompted to unmute by pressing 6 when you're ready.

To participate via Zoom, you

would follow the link I provided before. You can also find it online, and, you would be prompted to unmute, when it's your turn as well. So, do we now have any public comments? Okay. Rolling right along. Item number three is going to be discussion of our term limits for board and commission members. Deputy city attorney has a small presentation for us.

Hello members of the board. I'm Senior Deputy City Attorney, Rahman Garen, and I have a presentation on term limits. Just waiting for the screen to layer. So the Board of Ethics members serve at the pleasure of the City Council, who nominate nine appointees from qualified electors of the city and have at least one member from each ward. Members serve for a term of four years.

Members can only serve for two consecutive full years, or full terms. Members can continue to serve until a successor is appointed and qualified. When a vacancy occurs, a replacement can be appointed as discussed above by the city council or the mayor. Board vacancies that remain for over sixty days, the mayor shall appoint a person to fill that position. Vacancies leaving an unexpired portion of a term, any appointment to fill such a vacancy shall be for the unexpired portion of that term.

So it's not for a full term of the four years, it's for whatever period of time is remaining. A term of more than two years and one day shall be considered a full term. So if the rest of the term is only two years, it's not gonna be considered a full term. But if it's over two years and one day, then it will be considered a full term. And any questions?

For me going back to the first slide that you had where it was saying that members can continue to serve until a successor is appointed and qualified. Is that beyond the limit of the Correct. So there's not anyone interested in taking over.

So it's, say the term is expired, there isn't another person within sixty days, the mayor has the ability to appoint that person, and there's a process for them to become qualified to serve on the board. So during that time period, the board member can continue to serve.

Those six seatings During those until six Okay. And then at that point, the mayor would assign the seat to someone else because they've gone over. Okay. Correct. Okay.

That was and then so I think what we were talking about last time was that we were thinking about extending the term so that it was instead of four years, maybe five. We don't we don't have a set specific amount of time, but we were working on the expansion of of the powers and then autonomy, which seems to be like it'll be a quite a long lengthy process because government, as we know, moves moves pretty slow. So we were a little cautious about handing off the the the responsibility of, you know, seeing that project out to its end within the Well, not all of us have eight years left now, and we just started it this year.

Right.

Right? So some of us have two years left, some of us have three, whatever it is. So how would we go about looking into possibly expanding it from, you know, four to five or four to six or, you know, whatever.

As far as the term or the number of council members? As far as I gotta I have to check and see whether there's anything in the charter that would prevent that Mhmm. As far as that actual term limit. So I can respond back at the next meeting to make sure there is no other anything in the charter in the government code that would prevent us from changing it from four years to five years or to another number. Or whether and to confirm that the board has the power to do that. That is not the city council's power to determine how long that term is.

Right. Because that was going to be a question for me. As far as I'm aware, we're responsible for our charter and potential changes or edits to our own charter. But yes, I would be interested if that's something that would still need to be signed off on by counsel or So if you could kinda track that down.

I'll have an answer at the next meeting.

Yeah, perfect. Okay.

No problem.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Any other questions? Anyone?

Okay.

Alright. Thank you.

I'm sorry. Have a question. I didn't know if I should push the button first or not. Sorry. Didn't reach Just a quick question. With the if if there isn't anyone that the mayor is able to assign, is there a limit on the amount of time that board member could continue to serve?

There's no limit that's in the code.

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

But theoretically, it's not supposed to go for But there is no limit.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much. Alrighty. Our next item, item four is going to be our consent calendar. That is to approve the minutes for our April 3 meeting. Does anybody have discussion or any changes necessary?

If there's no discussion, I move that we approve the minutes.

I second it. Okay.

Let's go ahead and run that for a vote. We have a second. Okay.

Motion carries unanimously. Oh, with one abstention. Sorry. With five votes and one abstention. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Alrighty. Then the next item is gonna be our discussion calendar. Again, audience participation is encouraged if there's any public comment for our calendar, what we have up for discussion this meeting for May. The first item is reviewing the language for the code of ethics and conduct complaint form.

Question six regarding complaining party must identify when the policy of the city of Riverside was established that is alleged to have been violated in accordance with Riverside municipal code section two point seven eight point zero seven zero point d point five. And that's on page nine of the packet. I know it's in here. 10. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you, member Foreman. So on page 10 of the packet that we have been provided, the the actual item reads witness witnesses, documents, photographs, recordings, or other tangible materials other than those submitted with the complaint or official's reply shall be introduced at the hearing considered by the hearing panel except upon a finding by the hearing panel that the discovery of evidence came to the awareness of the proponent after the filing of each complaint or reply and that the proponent disclosed such information to the city clerk as soon as practicable after becoming aware of its existence. It does say to attach copies of any and all document. That's number nine.

That's oh, okay. I was like, am I reading the wrong thing altogether? Did it say six? Yeah. I thought it said number nine in our packet for some reason. Oh, question six, yeah. Thank you, member Foreman. Alright. Let's try this again. Number six.

So for alleged violations of RMC section two point seven eight point zero seven zero letter m, the specific sections of the charter of the city of Riverside or Riverside municipal code or the policy of the City Of Riverside including when the policy of the city of Riverside was established that is alleged to have been violated must be identified below. Below. So last time our discussion was whether we are able to make a change to that specific section where we're requiring or change the wording at least of how we're requesting that the data establishes is provided.

I think we were specifically asking too for a legal opinion on can we just take out that whole last part where it says they have to identify when the policy was established. Why are we putting that burden on somebody? Can can we are we legally allowed to just take that whole last part of the sentence out? Starting with including when the policy blah blah blah was established.

We can make a request Uh-huh. To counsel to have that changed. But we can't just

Just willy nilly do it. I

think so where our discussion wound up is I think we were saying including when the policy of the city of Riverside was established that it was alleged to be violated must be identified below instead of putting must be identified below. Well, we can maybe change it to say must be identified below if applicable.

Don't think that that wasn't really the part that bothered us. Was the part which said they have to identify when was this policy that was violated established. And that makes them go have to do research. So if we just take out that last part of the sentence, I think it's okay to and we can simplify language as we're meaning to do, as far as just taking out a requirement makes it different.

What I'm saying real quick, Louis, sorry. What I was saying is that I think we were saying it makes sense for them to have to include it when it's something new, a new policy or a new item that has been recently established, and that was to establish that the violation occurred after that came into effect, right, but not for any of the existing stuff. I think that's why it was in there to begin with because we're saying that if they violate policy for city of Riverside, if there was a new or different policy than was previous, we want to establish that the violation occurred after that policy came into effect.

I still think that makes it a little onerous for just an ordinary person, maybe with not a high level of reading ability or not the ability to go research, know, is this a new policy? They may not know whether it's new or when it was established. I I would think if they say this policy was violated, then whoever the city clerk or we or could say, yeah. This this was established before the person violated it. You know, we could we could do that.

Okay. Member Hernandez?

So if I remember correctly, one of the other ideas that we had was if it wasn't possible to change that or if it wasn't gonna be easy, if we could include where, like, the website or where the individual could look up that information if if it's not possible to remove that altogether or alter it. If we could just include the resource where they could find that information, making it easier on the individual.

Member DeHuera?

I think how I'm reading it is it's kind of like a safety net for in case we have another prohibited action that someone could do. Because how I read it is, as of right now, a through n, these are the prohibited conducts that are could be fined as unethical when they created the charter and when they created the codes. But how I see it is including when the policy was established, what if we have another action that could be added later on? That's when that date is. That's how I read it.

That's what I was saying that if it's something new and that's why I was saying maybe we put in here if applicable because then it's referring to something new. If we go to letter o, and I read it the same so that's why I had thrown out that suggestion of if applicable.

I agree. Because that would just leave space where if

we do have to do

O or P as the times are changing. Right. So that's how I read it.

Yeah. Because A through M have been there for years at this point and way outside of the line of the the time frames that are allowed for violation. Like, a violation can't be more than two years old or something like that, whatever it is, but all of those a through m have been there for at least that long. But if it's, again, yeah, something new and I don't know I don't know if if applicable is is plenty.

Think I know that it's been left blank in the past when people have submitted complaints. But one of my concerns was if we go through the pre hearing and then we go through the hearing and then the individual is found guilty of violating that conduct. Can they go back and say, well, we have grounds for appeal because they didn't state when such and such date. And so obviously that's one of the main reasons that we're here is we really, it just feels so complicated for someone who's finding a complaint to read this and be like where do I find this information? Where do I find the year?

Where do I find? It seems like something that would discourage somebody from filing a complaint. And that's what we wanna do is make this whole process easier. So I don't know if your suggestion would kind of encompass like, okay, we don't need to exactly have that or what we need to do to proceed to be able to just either make the change, a simple change, or add the resource where they can find that information.

Right. And so I think that at least in my memory of all the complaints, think I'm on year five here. I've seen a lot of complaints. But I think it's important to specify that the complaints that I recall are based on the sections within the municipal code and that's why there's not a date attached to that complaint because they're not asking for the date of the letter for the municipal code A through M, they're asking for when the policy for the city was established so if there was a violation of just the policy of the city and none of the complaints that I recall have been against policy, they've been against the code. So that's why they can go through without a date provided but it's so cumbersome the way that that's even put to because you can misinterpret it and think, I also need it if I have a violation for the for the city code.

But it's it's specifically saying that it's needed if there's a violation to the policy for the city, which is different than the code.

I I worry that people may not know the difference between the code and the policy, that it may just be one blur to them. So I'm I think I'm kind of in the minority that that's okay. I'll back out. I still just think it would be so much easier if we just left that out. And then if there was ever any question about when it was established, we as a board could bring that up in the hearing if there is a hearing. You know, or we could ask about it. I think

that also Oh, I'll come around. At the pleasure of the chair, get to speak worse. No, what I was going say is I think that Nope, I lost it. It is a day to day.

I just wanted to say I agree with Ms. Foreman. She's not in the minority. I think removing it altogether would be the best outcome. But again, we don't even know if that's possible. If it is possible, obviously there's gonna be a process to all of that.

Okay, I remember. So for policy of the city of Riverside, think that obviously to violate the code or policy, you have to either be an employee of the city or a volunteer like us. We can be in violation of the city code or policy. But the policies are kind of established like HR policies and so if I would think that if an employee of the city is the defendant and they would know when the policy was established like if they make a change to sexual harassment, if they make a change to bullying or something, their definition of bullying within the office or whatever. If somebody brought a complaint against them and said, hey, you're not allowed to do this anymore, then I as an employee would know, oh, they changed that in October and this happened back whenever.

So I would defend myself because I'd say okay, well I did that but it was before policy. So we put the onus on the defendant, not on the complainant would make more sense. If we got rid of it like you said, it just seems logical that the person would say no no no, that wasn't in effect until this date.

That's a good point, I agree and that would make it kind of cover us. So, know, should we I don't know the legality. Should we make a motion to ask the city whoever we need to ask if we can take this wording out?

I don't think we need to make a motion for that. I think we just ask. Right.

We can make a recommendation.

Okay. So

do we all need to agree that that's the recommendation we want? I mean, I know three of us now.

That would probably be a good idea. Yes. I've got member, yes, yes. Alright. Oh, I think Danielle was first.

You. I think my first question was has this been a barrier in the past? And I feel like you've answered that already for me. So I'm definitely in agreement with that, but I feel like maybe an option might also be is adding a question if this is a new policy. Maybe they can check this box or something to have some type of way to track it but with removing that.

And I think my last question or kind of comment is around, it's related to seven as well. So I appreciated the comment that you all made about making it as easy as possible for the complainant. So I'm wondering in addition to the question of is this information readily available to where people can access it? It's similar to seven. So if they violated a federal or state law, is it something that's available right there where they can access those federal or state laws? Are we looking at them to kinda go off and do their own research? I would love to see that that all be kind of together and make it as easy as possible for the person to complete it especially if there is a time limit.

So interestingly, we actually edited those questions because number six and seven were one and we actually split them apart for that reason because we thought okay, this is local, you know, local policy and local code and this is state and federal. And we we chose to keep them separate because they're not the same. You know? I mean, they're they they can be vastly different. So, yeah.

I had just a little bit of really brief recap is that it's mainly Chair Newman has brought up in the past that we really need to simplify how this whole complaint process goes and make it accessible to people. So there's an ad hoc committee that I'm on and she's on and Luis. And we're we're working to do like have, you know, a video that people can listen to. And my focus is simplifying the wording because I have a like an expertise in that to making it like, we could keep the original wording and then have an explanation of what that means. So that's the whole aim of this is we're looking at how do we make it accessible to somebody who maybe has a sixth grade reading level but they still have the right to make a complaint.

And what's the simplest way? So this is all part of a bigger thing that we're gonna be doing. It's very exciting. Isn't it exciting, you guys?

Yes.

We all feel very important. Okay, Member Vega?

This is to the people. This is to our. So we don't need to. They don't need to

Can I just add one more thing about number seven? I'm glad you brought that up too because you're right. It is very similar. And, yes, we did split that because it was one long run on sentence. It's like if they did this or this or that or this or that.

So now it's two separate things. I think on number seven, I think people will know if they're saying they violate a state or federal law, they'll they'll know what it is. Thinking back to one of the complaints we had that somebody had a DUI, and that's, you know, getting you know, they were found guilty of a DUI, and isn't that violating blah blah blah? So I think for number seven, it's not really I don't think we need to worry about them being able to find the information because they'll know. I mean, you know, if it was a state or federal law, they'll that's why they bring in the complaint because they know they broke the law or or think they did. Alleged that they did. Is that

Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah and then we made sure actually so what we did was we added as well with an explanation of how the alleged violation affects the performance of their duties in the office that they hold because that all came about from that DUI complaint for sure. Okay, so we have I don't think we have a motion because I think we're all saying that we wanted to get information on if it's removable.

Should we make it a specific request or whatever? We request that we be able to remove the last part of that sentence.

If the board's desire is for staff to research how it was put there or what?

No removing removing that last

part To of amend the municipal code you'd have to make a motion to request that the city council consider amending the municipal code. I don't know if it's one of those things that you want to add to your annual review in August as for consideration?

Yeah, mean I think that would, this isn't something that needs to happen tomorrow and I think packaging it up as part of the rest of the annual review would be probably advisable, a lot less work for everybody to do everything all at once. So when we get to the forming ad hoc part of today's agenda, we'll go over that then. I think as far as any other discussion or thoughts about anybody have any opposition to taking that out? Everybody? I kind

of like how you talked about applicable. If applicable.

Yeah. I think that's a good option if it's a lengthy process or gonna be really difficult to remove the whole thing entirely. I think that's a good option.

Yeah, so it's not lengthy. Part of our duties every year is to review the code of ethics and the municipal code and it's a live live document that we were constantly refining and changing. So it's just part of our submittal of every year. We go these are the phrases and these are the wording that we don't agree with. We'd like to update and we submit it and then counsel either says yay or nay.

Right. I remember how the process works is just would it be better, is it possible when we go before the governmental process committee to give them an option rather than this is what we want and then it doesn't happen and then we have to come back and say can we change the wording to if applicable?

Right, to present both.

Right.

Yeah, we can do that. Where was I? So that's item five, yes. I did public comment for number five. I was gonna move to six and then ask for comment again.

Okay. Just so it's on the record, we do encourage those public comments and if anyone would like to chime in on the next item, which is six for establishing ad hoc committees. Do call the (951) 826-8688 number to join the queue. Not much of a queue at the moment. And just making sure because usually, it takes a little time for the feed to go out and people to respond, still no one for public comment.

Okay, no callers. So item number six was establishing ad hoc committees for 2025 plan. We have the work plan attached to our packet. Thank you, assistant city clerk Eva. The ad hocs that we still are looking at, so provide training and advocacy to boards and commissions on an ongoing basis.

That one is similar for those of you that were on the board, Pardon me. We're on the board last year. That was when we all signed up for a different turn to go before the other boards that are part of the city and advocate for them to review the code of ethics, right, and see if there were any suggestions for changes or improvements to that code. So we need to go out again this year and remind them again that if there are suggestions before we go ahead and submit our final annual review of the code of ethics to city council which will be in August. We need to try to get a committee, an ad hoc together that will take part in attending those meetings in the next couple months for June and July so that we can gather all of those suggestions from others because we had a whole pile last year.

Just kidding. We had crickets, but that's okay. It's part of our, you know, it it it's part of our annual responsibility. So we're gonna go out again. Would anyone like to volunteer to be on the outreach committee?

I'd like to volunteer for that. I participated in it last time.

It Lisa's on all of the committees.

Would our new member like to jump in there?

Yes, I was just gonna say I would like to volunteer as

well. Awesome, please.

And there's another ad hoc as well, so in '20

We keep adding more and more.

Space for her. Okay. So we've got Luis and Danielle for that particular ad hoc. So I think that's it. We can only have we can't have more than three people anyway. So I think two is good. Oh, four. Attends the yeah. Yeah. I think that we were very fortunate to have city clerk's office attend a couple of them for us because we were not able to with work permitting and all that, we weren't able to get all of the meetings attended by by one of our members.

Hopefully, we can get the same support this year than we did last year. And then also, you know, as we take a look at calendar, I think Assistant City Clerk is going to send out the dates that are coming up for yourself and Member Hernandez to sign up for what you can. I don't think it'd be a violation for there's a presentation that we did last year. I think we can use the same one. Just clean it up because there was a couple changes that were made so that presentation needs a little sprucing.

Assistant city clerk has volunteered to help clean it up for us because she is the keeper of the PowerPoint. Or, you know, you guys can really be eager beavers and design a whole new one if you want But yeah. So there'll be a a prebuilt presentation we're using same as last year, spruced up. And then I don't think we would be in any kind of violation if there was, you know, one or two meetings that between the two of you, you can't cover if we if we get a list from assistant city clerk to say these are still open and unable to be attended, one of us can volunteer to just do the presentation as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be just the two of you in the ad hoc.

Last year, that's how we did it. We came to a meeting and we all had the schedule in front of us and we volunteered. Can do this. I enjoyed doing those last year and I'd be glad to do some more.

Yeah. I do want to make sure we establish that this this time around that the the two of them are on it because there are at least three board meetings prior to our next meeting in June. So I wanna make sure that either member Hernandez or mem what is your last name again?

Kilchinsteyn.

Kilchinsteyn. I've been practicing my German, so I should should remember that. So yeah. So between between member Hernandez and member Kilchinsteyn, the two of them can attend those first three before we reconvene. And then after that, hopefully, we'll have a calendar where we can each kind of raise our hand and say, okay. I can take the rest of all these. Yes.

I have a couple of the dates that are in early June if you would like me to share those with you now and you guys may make a decision to assign yourselves to those.

I like it.

So for the human resources board, they meet the first Monday of the month, which would be before your next meeting at 6PM on Monday. I haven't confirmed that they're gonna do this in the month of June. Might do it in July, but then the July date would be closer to the July 4, so I'm not sure. So if if you wanna volunteer now, I can let them know that somebody can come to their June meeting.

So that's gonna be Monday, June 2.

At 6PM.

6PM. Anyone?

I can make it.

Okay, great. Do you feel comfortable doing the PowerPoint on your own?

I feel like if I can consult with member Hernandez and maybe give me a few talking points, and if there's a question that I'm unable to answer, I'm happy to let folks know that I'll follow-up with them if that would be okay.

Yeah. I think that would be great. It's pretty simple. It's just basically we we go in and we introduce ourselves and say, hey. We're from Board of Ethics. If you remember, we were here last year. You know, city the code of ethics is in review again. You know, please take time to review it. If you have suggestions, submit them to us. We're happy to hear comments. Thank you for your time. Bye. That's the the the very high overview, but basically, that's it. That's that's all the the whole reason why we're there. But yeah. So we'll make sure you two exchange information. Here we go.

So the next meeting would be the transportation board on Wednesday, June 4 at 05:30.

Wednesdays are tough for me in particular. Anyone available? Thank you, Gil. I may try and go with you, member Kelsenstein, for the first one, for the Monday. That's not always sometimes it's kind of an easier for me. Oh, no. I'm lying. I'll be in Europe.

Wait. I'm I'm confused. Are we supposed are we going to some of the meetings in May or just starting in June?

June. Oh, okay. Starting in June, but they're before our first.

I can go with her in in the first meeting to attend. Monday?

Yeah. Okay. So member Hernandez and member Kilchristine for the first one. And then Gil for Wednesday.

Right.

And so for the board of library trustees, they meet on Monday, June 9 at 5PM. K.

Another Monday. I should be back by then. Let me make sure. Yes. I'll be back by then. I can do that. I definitely need an EVA reminder because I will be jet lagged and

There's a June meeting for the commission of the deaf.

Our meeting isn't our meeting on the fifth?

Yes. Yes.

Okay.

So these are just the ones that I know now that they will be putting on their agenda. And then the commission on aging and park and rec are back to back on Monday, June 16 at four p. M. And then again at 06:30. So I don't know if you guys wanna plan on those now or decide at your next meeting.

The budget engagement commission, that's on a Thursday. Correct? The Thursday after hours?

Thursday. But they've already planned to do it July 10.

Oh, okay.

I don't know by our June meeting whether I can do one or both of those, but I don't know yet.

What days?

What time

for those?

The sixteenth. Monday, June 4

and 06:30.

Yes. I can do the 06:30 '1. Okay.

Let me look up the commission of the deaf because I know they're meeting in June for that.

It's the sixteenth? Mhmm. Looks

like it's

Which board is that? That's the second one on the sixteenth?

Commission on aging at four.

And then what's the next one? Parks and rec.

So, the commission of the deaf meets on the second Wednesday at 05:30 in June.

I think I can do the second, the parks and rec

on The the eleventh. It's the second Wednesday in June.

Okay. So, the park and recreation meeting at 06:30, you wanna

do I think I'm pretty sure.

Yeah. Remember Hernandez said he he would attend that one? You wanna attend that with him?

You were gonna do the first one? You were gonna do the 04:00 one? No.

No.

No. Okay. Never mind. Sorry. Maybe and which one is the 4PM? Aging. Aging. I'm pretty sure I can do that, and I will know more by the time of our next meeting, if that's okay.

Yeah. Okay.

And at this point, I don't have any other budget engagement is in July. I don't know if you wanna plan on that one. Now or decide later?

I think it's a little far out for us to

Then I'll get more dates by the next meeting.

I can do that one. Oh. Fine. I can sign up for that one because I think their time is I think on a Thursday. Think I can do that one.

Okay. 5PM.

Sign me up now. Might as well.

Okay. Take it. Before he changes, it's mine.

Okay. And I'll share the calendars with you by email.

And then when is your light, Tim?

Alright. Public education and outreach, we have already. And then deliver the annual report to city council. That'll be myself. So that's done. We have the the big super fun one that everybody loves. Uh-oh. Annual review of the code of ethics. So our suggestions for what we're soliciting all the other boards for. They don't have to look at that code if they don't want to, but we encourage them participate.

Like, we encourage audience participation, but we are required to read it every year. So we do need an ad hoc to review that code. Any takers?

Delve into that and see if we can make some of the wording. Because that's where where like, what I'm looking at right now, looking at the chart. There are some aspects of the charter that supports our well, even the the municipal code that supports the subpoena power, but it has to be through city council.

So I guess just sign me up for every ad hoc committee?

Well, you know, that's what I was saying. I would make a recommendation if if you have the bandwidth, Member Kiltgenstein, that it's a really good way to get to know who we are and what we do and what we advocate for and really educate yourself on when complaints do come to be familiar with what those code violations are. I would recommend it's a good practice for any new member but certainly everyone has life and all the things, so no pressure of any kind.

I would actually love to be the third, but just wanted to open space for member foreman in case, because I know that you said you were working on simplifying language, so I didn't know if you wanted to take

No, because I think it's sort of a different thing. Okay. I mean, it's kind of the same, but kind of different.

Great, I'm happy to take that third place, Yay.

So

the members for the ad hoc for the annual review are going to be member Kilchristine, member Vega and chair Hernandez. That's it?

Yes.

So So if somebody would make a motion for that.

I would like to make a motion to establish the ad hoc committee for 2025 annual review to include member Hernandez, member Kilchinsteyn, and member Vega.

I second the motion.

You're not allowed.

You're on

no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

You're on too many committees.

Can you guys make a vote? Please vote. Okay, I motion carries unanimously.

Okay, also am then going to make the motion for the ad hoc to provide the PowerPoint. I don't know what we wanna call that ad hoc. The education on annual review to foreign boards. I'm making things up. But that other ad hoc, I would like to make a motion for it to be member Kilchrist Stein and member Hernandez.

I second.

We were forming an hoc for those presentations. Okay. Okay. Then we will leave it. I re I re recall or rescind my motion. I don't know what is the right word. Okey dokey. Where are we? We are on our next item. We are rocking and rolling today.

Let's see. I lost my page. Here we go. So moving fast forward to our communications section. Number seven, we have any brief reports on meetings attended by any of our board members. Anyone have a meeting to declare? Nope. Excellent.

The the little get together we had.

The recognition dinner? Yeah. That wasn't that it's not that wasn't a meeting. It was just a dinner. I will, I think, throw in there under brief reports on meetings for a future meeting. The one in June, as I kind of alluded earlier a minute ago, I'm going to be in Europe. So it'll be our first board of ethics meeting conducted by vice chair Hernandez. I will I will not be calling on teams from Ireland. Alright. Item number eight, ad hoc updates.

Number letter. Letter a for the subpoena power and authority to compel city employee representatives to peer at witness. For board of ethics hearings, we request the update, please, from member Vega and vice chair Hernandez.

Yeah. As far as the the charter?

Just any any updates on any progress you guys have made?

Just basically, you know, I just come across the the fact that that it boils down to the the power of the city council, you know, having say so on on a lot of the, aspects there. Even though we do have, in some ways, and I was looking at even with the municipal code, that we do have some power with subpoena. So we you know, it's not like it's totally lost or anything else like that, but we just, you know, it's still dependent on city council. And so we really need to look at reorganizing some of that fact. And being in the other committees, I mean, or the, you know, ad hoc committee, that could help.

So just basically, from what, you know, I encounter with the charter, it's gonna eventually have to be worded as such so that we could gain support by the public and then eventually, you know, gain that autonomy that we need.

Through our research, obviously, you know, we came across some information that, you know, obviously, we can you know, just the wording in here as far as the charter. It says each board or commission may request from the city council the power to compel the attendance or of witnesses to compel the production of evidence before it and to administer oath and affirmation. The city council by resolution shall have sole power to provide such power to boards and commissions. So if we need to, we can go to city council. But the goal of this, I think, is similar to the Riverside Police Review Commission is if we go here, it says subpoena shall only be issued by the commission upon the affirmation or the affirmative vote of six commission members.

Obviously, they've gotten their subpoena power through city charter. And as far as our research talking through all the different cities, we've kinda covered this last time. Obviously, that's the extent of what powers we have now is going to city council and asking them to compel someone to produce documents or to be a witness. But, obviously, we discussed this as well before is the goal is to become something similar to the other cities that have the subpoena power that the Riverside Police Review Commission has as well where we don't have to go to city council. We can decide on it ourselves through a number of votes of our board.

Obviously the research is gonna continue as far as all that because we still have to establish how we're gonna go about that moving forward. And we obviously established as well that that's gonna take time. But that's the goal. And as far as that portion of the research, that's where we've gotten. The next portion of it is how we're gonna achieve that if possible.

Okay. Any questions from the rest of the board on on where we're at with that particular research? Nope. No callers. Right?

Update on creating method for public education and public outreach. I will be the first to admit that member Foreman has been diligent in trying to move us forward and member Hernandez and myself have been diligent in trying our best. That's the most I can say. Next steps, though, anyway, are still finishing out the the PowerPoint, and then member Foreman has volunteered to get started on some of the wording on the simplified explanations that we have at this point identified would be necessary. Either one of you wanna say anything else about where we are?

Well, you two guys did a lot of work, you know, last month. So, you know, props for that. You got all the, you know, what was so I couldn't have done it myself, which is find out how would we present this, like, on screen and how would where would we have URL links or hyperlinks to go, then what would we show on this slide? So, you've got that mostly broken down and that's like, you know, 75, 80% of the work right there. So, take credit for doing that. And then, yeah, so my next part will be start sending me some of the slides or whatever format they are and then I'll take a crack at how would you write this to simplify it. And then I'll send it back to you guys and go from there.

I think we have, if I'm not mistaken, we've got like two or three more questions that we need to produce slides for for just the page where it explains how to file a complaint. And then we still need to start on the complaint form itself to to do the guide for that and how that's gonna be organized and broken out. And then we had a third one, Luis, where we were going to explain each of the each of the letters for the violation of the code a through m and break down what those mean. And then also as part of that section of the explanations we were gonna produce, we also wanted to talk about what is admissible evidence. So, you know, written, like, breakdown this this type of evidence is not really not really relevant or submittable or whatever.

So we wanted to do that as well. So we still have quite a bit of work left to do. But that's where we are. Anyone else? Questions? Things? That nature? No? Perfect. Okay.

Moving on for our last item. Did we spark any thoughts on items you any of you would like to see on our future meeting agenda.

It it would be nice to get an update on whether we're gonna any more members are in the pipeline to bring us back to closer to nine people, if possible. If we could get an update on that next next time, that'd be great.

We are looking a little shaggy over here with six people. You. That's a good one. Thank you for performing. Any other items for discussion? Nope? Okay. I'm gonna call it. Thank you everyone for your time and for, your attendance and meeting adjourned.