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QUESTION

What is the threshold for the Conflicts of Interest Board to take action on attempted communications by former employees within their post-employment ban with their former agency?

1:06:59

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175 sec

The Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) considers several factors in determining whether to pursue enforcement action against former city employees who attempt prohibited communications with their former agency during their post-employment ban period.

If a former employee received formal written guidance before leaving and still made a prohibited communication, enforcement would likely be appropriate.
The board distinguishes between casual contact attempts and actual meetings taking place with prohibited communications occurring.
Staff may handle minor incidents through education and outreach instead of board referral.
The prohibited communications cover more than just lobbying activities.

David Carr

1:06:59

Thank you, chair.

1:07:00

I guess this question is for Koi, but you talked in your response to the chair's questions earlier.

1:07:06

About how agency officials will contact you and say that they shut down attempted communications by former employees who were still within their the scope of their post employment ban talking to their former agency.

1:07:21

What's I guess, what's what's the point at which you deem that to be actionable on your part?

1:07:27

Because you're saying like, oh, the communication was shut down.

1:07:29

Nothing ended up happening because the agency knew better.

1:07:32

But that doesn't mean people aren't making multiple attempts at that over the time with different agency personnel At what point does it rise to the level where nothing happened, but you'd still wanna maybe have that referred or considered on your part.

Carolyn Miller

1:07:47

Yeah.

1:07:47

There's a variety of factors that go into it, and it's a decision that's of the 5 the board itself that, you know, it's not a half decision about whether to pursue enforcement.

1:07:56

Certainly, if someone were to receive, we had a record that they received formal written guidance before they left city service and they still made a prohibited communication, then we know that the the sort of the pre shutdown hadn't worked, and then enforcement would be appropriate.

1:08:13

If the contact wasn't just a casual, let's set up a meeting, but the meeting itself then then we would likely pursue enforcement.

1:08:24

It's not sort of the because the post employment communication is not lobbying.

1:08:29

It's a whole wide array of communications that former city employees make.

1:08:37

And many city employees stay in the fields in which they worked in city service.

1:08:42

So we're talking about an ACS caseworker who goes to work for private, not for profit foster care agency.

1:08:48

And if at that private foster care agency, they call ACS to say, hey, we're wanting to make sure we have all the right information or case files or something like that.

1:08:58

What would be a prohibited post employment communication?

1:09:02

Not lobbying.

1:09:03

We would wanna look at that and make sure that that person understood what their obligations were.

1:09:08

If they're at a big meeting about the a contract, then that's probably something we'd pursued for.

David Carr

1:09:13

So you said the board makes all the decisions.

1:09:15

Is there no time when staff will say that this isn't worthy of board attention?

1:09:19

You're presenting every case to the board.

1:09:21

No.

Carolyn Miller

1:09:21

If there's something, not every single case.

1:09:23

If there's something that we can deal with, that's just like someone made a phone call.

1:09:27

The phone call wasn't returned.

1:09:28

It immediately came to us.

1:09:30

You know, sometimes there's a voice mail message.

1:09:32

Hey, Bob.

1:09:32

It's Sheila.

1:09:34

I used to work there, and it immediately comes to Ethan Schopp, who's in addition to being Council supervises the legal advice unit, we we our goal is to prevent violations before they occur.

1:09:45

So if we can reach out to a public a former public servant and educate them about the conflicts of interest law.

1:09:50

You know, we're trying to solve these problems sort of one public servant at a time.

David Carr

1:09:54

Understood.

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What is the verification process the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) follows to assess the credibility of alleged violations?