Next week, the City Council could vote on a slate of amendments to how to deal with ethics violations.
The proposed amendments to Dallas' code of ethics were recommended by the City's Ethics Reform Task Force.is tired of hearing about the city’s historic reputation for corruption. Before he was hired about a year ago, five Dallas City Council members had been convicted of felonies over a 16-year period.
The amendments aim to clarify rules around gifts for city officials and how those should be reported, and they extend conflict of interest restrictions to all city employees. Under the amendments, members of the council, boards and commissions would not be required to recuse themselves from matters that they have a conflict with if a majority of the other members share a similar conflict.
These days, Dallas uses “clear and convincing” as its evidentiary standard in cases of alleged ethics violations. But the amendments would see that changed to a “preponderance of evidence.” Clear and convincing evidence would prove something is highly and substantially more likely to be true than not, according to the legal encyclopedia Nolo Press, whereas the preponderance of evidence standard would have to show something is at least more than 50% likely to be true.
First, someone must bring forward an ethics complaint. Then, the inspector general must prove that the accused knowingly violated the code of ethics. From there, the"clear and convincing" evidence standard would be used to bring the matter before a panel of the city’s ethics commission. Then, the inspector general must convince four of five ethics commission panel members to agree with them. “So, it’s a very difficult burden on the person bringing the case,” she said.
Ridley asked Bevers if he could name another city that uses the lower standard of proof. Bevers said he didn't have a list of them prepared and didn't name any specific city.
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