SEC. 3.214. DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL, PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS.
§ 3.214
City officers and employees must publicly disclose any personal, professional, or business relationships with people involved in decisions they are making, if the relationship could reasonably make their impartiality questionable. Courts may void a decision if an officer willfully fails to disclose such a relationship and also fails to act with impartial skill and care for the city's benefit. The Ethics Commission may issue regulations on what relationships require disclosure and how to document them.
If you work for the City and you're making a decision that affects someone you know personally, do business with, or have a financial tie to, you must tell the public about that relationship. You have to write it down in meeting minutes or in a memo in your department's files. If you don't disclose the relationship on purpose, and you also didn't make your decision fairly and with the city's interests in mind, a court can overturn your decision. The Ethics Commission can write rules explaining which relationships need to be disclosed and how to do it.
- Controversial:Disclosure requirements and conflict-of-interest rules are subjects of ongoing public debate about government accountability and transparency.
- Complex:The standard for voiding a decision requires proving both willfulness and a failure to act with 'disinterested skill, zeal, and diligence primarily for the benefit of the City'—a multi-part legal test that may be difficult to apply consistently.
AI-generated · claude-haiku-4-5 · informational only, not legal advice.
Official text
(a) Disclosure. A City officer or employee shall disclose on the public record any personal, professional, or business relationship with any person who is the subject of or has an ownership or financial interest in the subject of a governmental decision being made by the officer or employee where as a result of the relationship, the ability of the officer or employee to act for the benefit of the public could reasonably be questioned. For the purposes of this Section 3.214, the minutes of a public meeting at which the governmental decision is being made, or if the governmental decision is not being made in a public meeting, a memorandum kept on file at the offices of the City officer or employee’s department, board, commission, or agency shall constitute the public record.
(b) Penalties. A court may void any governmental decision made by a City officer or employee who fails to disclose a relationship as required by subsection (a) if the court determines that: (1) the failure to disclose was willful; and (2) the City officer or employee failed to render their decision with disinterested skill, zeal, and diligence and primarily for the benefit of the City.
(c) Regulations. The Ethics Commission may adopt regulations setting forth the types of personal, professional, and business relationships that must be disclosed pursuant to this Section 3.214 and how the required disclosure must be made and archived.
(Added by Proposition E, 11/4/2003; amended by Proposition D, 3/5/2024, Eff. 4/12/2024, Oper. 10/12/2024)