SMTX City Council Amends City Code Of Ethics
The City of San Marcos approved a new subsection to section 2.421 the San Marcos Code of Ethics on Tuesday.
The amendment added the following subsection to the code:
(e) This Section 2.421 is intended only to set forth the policy and purposes for adoption of the San Marcos Code of Ethics; it shall not be cited, used, or considered by a citizen or by the Ethics Review Commission as the basis of an ethics complaint filed against any officer or employee of the city.
The Ethics Review Commission voted to provide the council with a recommendation to amend the code to disallow the section to be cited in an ethics violation on May 13.
The council’s discussion on the amendment was held during their May 19 meeting.
“There is several reasons why I wanted this item on the agenda,” Marquez said. “Since I’ve been office, which is from Dec. 2018 till now, there have been three ethics complaints filed against me citing section 2.421 of the ethics code as the violation. It’s so broad almost anything an officer or an employee does even in their private life could somehow be interpreted as a violation of that section.”
During their meeting, the Ethics Review Commission members stated they had seen a number of complaints filed citing a violation of section 2.421; while most of the complaints had been dismissed, it had taken up a great deal of the commission and staffs’ time to review the complaints.
Michael Cosentino, City Attorney, said the ethics commission came to the conclusion for the amendment on their own after seeing the nature of the complaints that had been filed.
Cosentino continued that complaints are being filed for an individual merely endorsing or sharing their opinion of their preferred candidate for office and not remaining “impartial.”
“Things have gotten considerably out of hand on this,” Cosentino said. “This section is so broad almost anything could be deemed the basis of an ethics complaint.”
The council approved the amendment unanimously on its second reading as part of the consent agenda.
SMTX-Ethics Code Amendment-Section 2
Nothing like, changing the rules when somebody points out that you are the one breaking them.
John H.
Mike Cosentino (City attorney) wrote this. Boilerplate garbage, fuzzy disclaimers and all. He should write comedy, as any reasonable jurist if asked to take this document as true, would find it hilarious.
“shall conduct themselves both inside and outside the city’s service so as to give no occasion for distrust of their integrity, impartiality or devotion to the best interest of the city”
but wait…..(e) –the AMENDMENT READS:
(e) “Section 2.421 is intended only to set forth the policy and purposes for adoption of theSan Marcos Code of Ethics; it shall not be cited, used, or considered by a citizen or by the EthicsReview Commission as the basis of an ethics complaint filed against any officer or employee of the city.
IN SHORT……THEY GUTTED EVERYTHING……………..THE LAUGHS ON US.
Why is Joca still on the city council? Didn’t she move out of the area? She cannot be relied on to actually attend meetings. And when she does find the time to do her job, she is barely even present.