The Commissioners of St. Michaels held a working session on Wednesday evening on the town ethics ordinance, after receiving notice from the State Ethics Commission in late May that the town would receive only a partial exemption from the State ethics law passed in 2010.
The General Assembly enacted legislation in 2010 (SB 315) that required local governments to create local ordinances that include conflict of interest and financial disclosure regulations for local elected officials that are at least equivalent to those required for statewide elected officials.
A number of municipalities requested exemptions from this law, including St. Michaels. The State Ethics Commission decided that St. Michaels is partially exempt in that lobbying provisions will not be required, but both conflict of interest and financial disclosure regulations must be adopted in compliance with the State Public Ethics Law.
Town Attorney Karen Ruff presented the Commissioners with a history of the legislation and the process that the previous Commission undertook, as well as suggestions for moving forward in forming new local legislation.
The Commissioners, led by newly elected President Michael Vlahovich, considered the first several sections of Ordinance No. 429, which was in draft form at the Commission’s December meeting when the town chose to apply for the exemption, rather than push forward to create a new town code of ethics.
The draft ordinance was created by the town’s 3 member ethics committee, who included procedures to carry out the provisions of the code into their draft. Commissioner Ann Borders suggested that the procedures be removed in order to streamline the code, and be maintained as a separate procedure manual. Ethics Committee member Sidney Trond said that the current code gives the committee no procedures at all to enforce the ethics provisions.
According to Ruff, disclosures that will likely be added into the code include any elected official’s:
– interest in real property if it is located in Talbot County, or if the property was acquired from a person doing business with the town.
– participation in business interests only in cases where that business is involved in business activities with the town.
– employment of family members if the business is involved in business activities with the town.
– indebtedness of the business if the business is involved in business activities with the town.
Separate work sessions will be scheduled to move through the draft legislation, modifying it or even redrafting legislation to address the conflict of interest and financial disclosure requirements.
In other business, the Commissioners considered the town refuse collection policy, with a focus on addressing issues with bulk pick up and recycling. A mailing will be created to educate St. Michaels residents about the current policy, and the Commissioners will re-consider bulk pick-up from a monthly to a weekly schedule.
The town will also add to its event permit application a requirement that any groups holding events on town property be required to recycle all recyclable materials during the event.
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