Mayor Guy Martin, Councilmembers Cindy Gjerswold, Dale Stainbrook, and Don Cavalier went through a draft for City of Crookston Code of Conduct and Ethics Thursday night. Cavalier who requested the Mayor create a workgroup to look a creating the additional codes said there are still a few steps they want to take before reviewing it with the full council. “Hopefully we can do it on our training on the 30th,” said Cavalier. “We’re still working on it. We have some other people to visit with like the lawyer and so forth to make sure we’re doing it right.”
Cavalier also said the legal side is one of the bigger questions the group had Thursday night. “I think the legal stuff is what we were more concerned about,” said Cavalier. “We want to have an opinion by legal counsel. There might be some other issues that come up but I’m not sure what those will be because we have some other people on the council to visit with yet.”
Guy Martin at one point said that years ago you didn’t really need something like a Code of Conduct but today it’s something that’s probably needed just as much for appearance. One of the topics referenced was on having proper discussions at meetings and addressing all parties correctly. That included making reports, asking or answering questions from the podium so that all parties can be heard completely on the audio record of the meeting which Martin said he supports. “That’s definitely important,” said Martin. “I think that we have to have everybody come to the podium. If they are a department head I’d call them by name but if they’re a constituent they have to address the council with their name and address.”
Cavalier is going to speak with the other councilmembers over the next week with the hope that the whole council could have a preliminary conversation on the draft at the strategy meeting March 30.
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