The City of Crookston held a Code of Conduct and Ethics committee meeting Thursday night at City Hall. The committee is working on developing the said codes for elected officials, city employees, boards and commissions. The meeting was attended by Mayor Guy Martin, Councilmembers Don Cavalier, Cindy Gjerswold, Dale Stainbrook, and Steve Erickson along with City of Crookston Finance Director Angel Weasner.
The committee has been chaired by Cavalier who has been doing research into the codes for other cities. Stainbrook asked Cavalier if cities like Thief River Falls and East Grand Forks ask their boards and commissions to sign their codes. Stainbrook said he was asking from the concern that it could deter people from serving. Cavalier, who used codes from those cities as templates, said he hadn’t asked if all of the volunteer positions serving on boards and commissions were required to sign in those cities, but he would look into it. Cavalier also said he thought the City of Crookston would want board and commission members wanting to sign the document to be serving in those roles. “We’re trying to eliminate conflicts and provide standards for ethics in city matters,” Cavalier. “We hope to promote the faith and confidence of the City of Crookston in their government to encourage citizens to serve on the council, boards, and commissions in the future. My thinking is it would make them more confident in wanting to serve the community, be on the board, take some action and do something.”
Cavalier said that while some may feel the document is a little long, that a complete document is needed not a watered-down version. “When we first started we had a page and a half code of conduct without ethics included,” said Cavalier. “I felt we needed ethics intertwined with it. We’re on the move to try to get this thing in place sometime in the future. We’ve had good discussions in three or four meetings to get this together. Some people think it’s a little long, but if you want to have a complete document, not a watered-down document.”
One of the topics areas in the Code of Ethics is a conflict of interest – members shall not use their official positions to influence government decisions in which they have a financial interest, or where they have an organizational responsibility or personal relationship which may give the appearance of a conflict of interest – which Cavalier affirmed his belief council members would need to refrain for voting or partaking in resolutions related to their person, property or business. “They’re not supposed to based on the League of [Minnesota] Cities,” said Cavalier. “They shouldn’t be voting on a motion or whatever if it’s going to benefit them monetarily. A person shouldn’t have the idea going in that they are going to make money or benefit from what they vote. It probably says someplace they can make money on it but maybe not more than they have invested in the project.”
When asked about council members having to abstain from votes based on the conflict of interest Martin said he would need to revisit that part of the document. “This document isn’t a finished document yet, but that’s a good point that you brought up,” said Martin. “I think it should be revisited and looked at. I’ll underline that and pay more attention to this.”
Asked if he could think of any instances in which, based on the definition of conflict of interest in the draft, a council member or members should’ve abstained. “I guess not in the short time I’ve been Mayor,” said Martin. “I guess it certainly could come up to be a conflict in certain instances.”
Martin said a couple of times throughout the meeting that he thought it was a good idea for the City of Crookston to have a Code of Conduct and Ethics in place, but that he had a hard time seeing a situation where it would come into place. Asked if he’d witnessed a situation since he was mayor the Code of Conduct and Ethics would come into play, Martin asked for a specific example. Asked about what transpired at Tuesday night’s Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority meeting Martin said, “It possibly could be. I guess I wouldn’t want to comment further on it, but there is a possibility.”
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