No Council member or other official or employee, whether paid or unpaid, shall engage in any business or transaction or shall have a financial or other personal interest, direct or indirect, which is incompatible with the proper discharge of his/her official duties in the public interest or would tend to impair his/her independence of judgment or action in the performance of his/her official duties. Personal, as distinguished from financial, interest includes an interest arising from blood or marriage relationships or close business or political association.
Specific conflicts of interest are enumerated below for the guidance of officials and employees:
(a) Incompatible employment: holding a position in addition to a public position which interferes, or may interfere, with the proper discharge of the public duty. No Council member or other official or employee shall engage in or accept private employment or render services for private interests when such employment or service is incompatible with the proper discharge of his/her official duties or would tend to impair his/her independence of judgment or action in the performance of his/her official duties.
(b) Use of confidential information obtained as a result of public position for personal gain.
No Council member or other official or employee shall, without proper legal authorization, disclose confidential information concerning the property, government or affairs of the City. Nor shall he/she use such information to advance the financial or other private interest of himself/herself or others.
(c) Acceptance of or soliciting of gifts and favors by a public official or employees. No Council member or other official or employee shall accept any valuable gift, whether in the form of service, loan, thing or promise, from any person, firm or corporation which to his/her knowledge is interested directly or indirectly in any manner whatsoever in business dealings with the City; nor shall any such official or employee accept any gift, favor or thing of value that may tend to influence him/her in the discharge of his/her duties, or grant in the discharge of his/her duties any improper favor, service or thing of value.
(d) Any use of official position for personal gain.
(e) Holding investments which interfere, or tend to interfere, with the proper discharge of public duty.
(f) Representation by public officials or employees of private interests before government agencies, courts or legislative bodies, and participation in the profits from such representation. No Council member or other official or employee whose salary is paid in whole or in part by the City shall appear in behalf of private interests before any agency of the City. He/she shall not represent private interest in any action or proceedings against the interests of the City in any litigation to which the City is a party. A Council member may appear before City agencies on behalf of constituents in the course of his/her duties as a representative of the electorate or in the performance of public or civic obligation. However, no Council member or other official or employee shall accept a retainer or compensation that is contingent upon a specific action by a City agency.
(g) Participation in transaction as a public representative with a business entity in which the public official or employee has a direct or indirect financial or other personal interest.
(h) Personal interest in legislation to the extent that private interest takes precedence over public interest and public duty. A Council member who has a financial interest, and who participates in discussion with or gives an official opinion to Council, shall disclose on the records of Council or other appropriate authority the nature and extent of such interest.
(i) Entry into contracts or other conduct of business for profit by a business in which a public official or employee has a substantial or controlling interest, especially when the public official or employee can influence such contract or business because of his public position. Any Council member or other official or employee who has a substantial or controlling financial interest in any business entity, transaction or services to the City, shall make known to the proper authority such interest in any matter on which he/she may be called to act in his/her official capacity. He/she shall refrain from voting upon or otherwise participating in the transaction or the making of such contract or sale. A Council member or other official or employee shall not be deemed interested in any contract or purchase or sale of land or other thing of value unless such contract or sale is approved, awarded, entered into or authorized by him/her in his official capacity.
(j) Soliciting or accepting future employment with a business with the government over which the public official has some control in his/her official capacity at the time of the transaction.
(Ord. 471. Passed 8-1-78.)