Model Code

False statements are a means of unfairly manipulating a situation in one's own favor. Please share your thoughts about this problem and your experiences with attempts to solve it through an ethics code or otherwise.

100(21). Honesty in Applications for Positions

No person seeking to become an official or employee,* consultant* or contractor may make any false statement, submit any false document, or knowingly withhold information about wrongdoing in connection with employment by or service for the city.

Many officials face a conflict every evening they have a meeting scheduled: between their obligation to attend a meeting of a board they sit on and their desire to do one of a number of different things. Many officials choose something else often enough that it has an effect on the board's effectiveness.

Please share your thoughts about this provision, and your experiences with problems involving meeting attendance and various attempts to deal with these problems.

100(20). Meeting Attendance

All members of boards and commissions are expected to attend and be prepared for meetings. It is a violation of this code to miss or come unprepared to more than a third of a board or commission's meetings in a twelve-month period.

Comment: If a member must miss or come unprepared for more than a small number of meetings, he or she should resign, whether or not his or her reasons are good ones. One can always ask to return to a position when one's health or schedule have improved.

There is a lot of talk about courtesy in politics, but most discourtesy involves lack of respect and uncontrolled emotions on the part of officials in their relations with each other. It becomes an ethical problem when citizens are attacked in order to intimidate them and others from being involved in local politics. The conflicting interest here is central to democracy: participation in government. False personal attacks are a favorite means of decreasing participation and citizen oversight.

I've been on the receiving end myself, and it is ugly. It would not be so favored if it were clearly considered an ethical violation.

100(19). Falsely Impugning Reputation

An official or employee* may not falsely impugn the reputation of a city resident. If an official or employee* believes his or her accusation to be true, and then learns that it was false, even in part, he or she should apologize in the same forum the accusations were made. A failure to so apologize within a reasonable period of time after learning of the falseness of the accusations will create the presumption that the conduct was fully intentional.