2005 0310 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting March 10, 2005 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida would not however prohibit per se the plarming commission member from participating in any matter affecting the interest of a bank customer where the bank itself would have no interest in the outcome of the matter, unless the relationship between the commissioner and the customer ofthe bank is such that the commissioner's objectivity or independence of judgment could be impaired with regard to the matters affecting the interest ofthat customer.", and this basically explains the situation. Commissioner Iglesias said for the record, what this is, is an ordinance for the future, and it says, "that it should be noted however, that the Commission members participation in matters affecting the bank's customer may create an appearance of impropriety.", we remove the word "appearance" and we added specific examples, so in this particular case it mayor may not appear to you, that is not for us to decide, this is an ordinance that is going to govern this City for future years. Mayor Ede1cup said he doesn't think there is anything wrong in increasing the moral standards ofthe way a commission acts and he said he thinks it is important that we all try to adhere to that, what we have to be careful about some inappropriate language getting used by mistake not be intent, and that is what we need to protect ourselves with, and maybe we should look at this ordinance like we look at land use ordinance where we have permitted uses and not permitted uses and from time to time we can amend it, take care of anything that we see as a specific instance belongs in column A permitted use or non-permitted use in column B, and maybe this is an ordinance that will grow in time by specific example because he said he thinks specific example helps the Ethics Commission later in determining what was the intent ofthis Commission when it passed this ordinance. Commissioner Iglesias said he has no problem but he is a strong advocate of a, b, c, that we put here and again this is first reading, at second reading we can change it. Commissioner Goodman said the original ordinance that was passed, if you would read the first sentence, it says almost the same thing that Commissioner Iglesias is bringing up, "An official officer including an elected official or employee ofthis City shall not make any personal investments in enterprises which he or she has reason to believe that he or she may be directly involved in the final decision making as to development approval to be made by him or her or which will otherwise create conflict between his or her public duty." Commissioner Iglesias said he doesn't agree with it and when he spoke with the Attorney General's office, the Commission of Ethics, and he gave this, it made it more clear, and he said that Robert Meyers said it seems that interest and enterprise is covered with more than just real estate, so Commissioner Iglesias wants to include this one now. Mayor Ede1cup said that what Commissioner Iglesias has proposed has some merit and it needs some work, and noted what the Supreme Court in Connecticut said is that you have to be careful when you do these things because you don't want to disqualify good people from running for office, so we should be extremely careful in our wordings of any ordinance that increases the responsibility of our ethics and with that he hopes that this is voted down tonight or that it is changed so that we can get the proper wording in at a future date. Vice Mayor Thaler said he would like this pulled off for a month to give them time to digest it and go through it word for word. Mayor Ede1cup suggested having a workshop so they can all comment on it. Commissioner Brezin said that this may have many merits but she would like an opportunity to read it through very carefully and would like it deferred tonight and have a workshop on it. Commissioner Goodman said he needs clarification on some ofthe words in the ordinance and would like this deferred tonight. Commissioner Iglesias said he proposes that we adopt this ordinance on first reading tonight and on second reading, ifthe Commission believes they don't have enough time to vote on it or study it, then turn it down and then later 8