During their first meeting this week, the new Edinburg City Council implemented measures meant to build trust with the community.
In his first meeting as the new mayor, one day after he was sworn in, Ramiro Garza Jr. was able to deliver on a campaign promise to have the executive session portion of city council meetings recorded while also implementing a time toward the beginning of city council meetings for elected officials to disclose any conflicts of interest they may have with items listed on the agenda.
Executive session or closed meetings are segments of city meetings when a council or other government body meets privately. State law requires that a governmental body keep either a recording of a closed meeting or a certified agenda which must provide a brief summary of each deliberation within the closed meeting.
Those records must be kept for at least two years and must remain confidential.
“Currently, the city ordinance requires the agenda for executive sessions to be done by certified written agenda,” City Attorney Omar Ochoa told the council regarding the proposal to record the sessions. “This is a proposed change to make it a requirement that executive sessions be recorded and would not allow for just a written certification agenda.”
The council members unanimously voted to approve the change which was effective immediately.
As for disclosing conflicts of interest, Garza said it was added as a starting off point toward the goal of adopting a code of ethics.
“What we’re trying to do is just, in the spirit of open government and transparency, is we wanted to have that as a line item so that it provides the elected officials an opportunity to disclose any conflicts of interest with any items on the agenda,” Garza said in an interview on Thursday.
If they do have a conflict of interest, city council members, as well as other members of governmental bodies, are required to file an affidavit stating what the interest is and are required to abstain from voting on that matter, according to Sec. 171.004 of the Texas Local Government Code.
“At this point, it’s been added to just ensure that we follow an open process as it relates to that and at the end, looking to have it be part of the code of ethics that we’re looking to establish and we’ve been working on,” Garza said. “But, for now, I had asked for that item to just be added just so that we can start that process.”
Garza said he hopes to have a discussion of that code of ethics during a future meeting in order to get feedback from the rest of the council on what it should include.
“As of now, it’s really going to include a culmination of state requirements … to be put into one place, as well as local requirements let’s say like conflicts of interest or any personal financial disclosures that we need to make as well,” he said.
Ochoa, the city attorney, said they’re also looking at already established codes of ethics.
“What’s being done is kind of a general comparison for other cities that have codes of ethics, taking a look at those,” Ochoa said. “Also, trying to gather all of the requirements that elected officials have through state law to be included in the code of ethics as well.”
What it ultimately will entail, though, is still to be determined.
“The final scope and element of the code of ethics will be up to the city council,” he said. “They’ll have to vote to adopt whatever that code ends up looking like.”
