Stressing ethics transparency

Denver councilman is working on a draft to update official and employee conduct.

Nearly two years after the Denver Board of Ethics started discussing changes to beef up conduct rules for the city’s elected officials and municipal employees, a city councilman says he plans to start drafting a proposal.

Councilman Kevin Flynn, who is in his first term, said his bill, to be filed in coming weeks or months, would incorporate the consensus from a Code of Ethics working group that has met for about six months. That group has included outgoing City Attorney Scott Martinez, who had questioned some of the ethics board’s proposals.

The group, which most recently met May 16, largely has agreed on some changes that include expanding the definition in the conflict-of-interest rules of family members who can’t benefit from contracts or official action; adding restrictions on soliciting donations for the city or outside charities or nonprofits; and the tightening of other rules.

Still others are in flux. Flynn said he likely would include a proposed gift limit. It would set a maximum annual value of $250 per donor or business on gifts of meals and event tickets to officials or employees who are in a position to take action that benefits the donor. Currently, the limit is four meals, tickets or free/reduced-price admissions, but with no limit on value.

That change has faced some resistance, including from Flynn, making it vulnerable to an amendment after the bill is filed.

“My position on the task force was, as a reporter, I always wanted stricter disclosure, more transparency and penalties for not being transparent more than I would

want a cap,” said Flynn, who previously was a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News. “The cap is so artificial that it’s more like squeezing a balloon.”

It’s still unclear how strong the council’s appetite for stronger ethics rules will be. Previous councils have been resistant, but Flynn says his sense is that the current council is more likely to support most of the changes under discussion.

An attempt to reach ethics board chairman Brian Spano on Friday was not successful.

Flynn said he also planned to draft a separate bill that would require better disclosure of gifts by city officials. They currently file their reports only once a year and with little detail required, though some, including Mayor Michael Hancock, have provided more detail voluntarily.

In recent months, the ethics code working group has discussed suggestions for more changes to the code from outside groups that include Colorado Common Cause and Colorado Ethics Watch. Those include barring ethics board members from contributing to Denver municipal candidates and creating a nominating committee to vet candidates for Board of Ethics openings before the mayor or the council makes appointments.

Those ideas — part of a potential voter initiative that the groups are drafting for the November ballot — haven’t been roundly embraced, though.

Katie Dahl of Common Cause said the groups still could include those proposals in the ballot measure. The initiative, which its backers plan to finalize soon, also may include more restrictive contribution limits for municipal candidates and the creation of a public financing system for local elections.

In the city working group’s ethics code discussions, one early proposal appears to have fallen by the wayside because of struggles to craft a restriction that would work, participants say.

Ethics board members wanted to close a loophole in the ethics code that allows for-profit organizations to funnel potentially prohibited gifts for elected officials or employees through nonprofit groups. They were aiming to address the way Hancock’s trip to watch the Denver Broncos in the 2014 Super Bowl was paid for.

The proposed changes that remain have moved slowly. But Martinez, who is leaving the administration Tuesday, said they spurred good discussions.

“We wanted to work with the ethics board and community groups to create a more transparent and updated version of the ethics code,” he said. “We always have to look at keeping our ethics laws up to date, and I think that’s been a good-faith effort by all of the participants.”