Leppert Calls for Another Ethics Reform Briefing, Doesn't Want This "Petering Out"

By Robert Wilonsky Fri., Oct. 23 2009 at 9:33 AM

Categories: News

Chris Heinbaugh, Mayor Tom Leppert's chief of staff, tells Unfair Park this morning that the mayor still hopes to get those ethics reforms passed at Wednesday's regular city council meeting. (Good luck with all that.) We should have a better idea of what they actually look like later this evening, when the meeting addendum is posted. But there's still one more briefing to go: The City Secretary's Office posted late yesterday this notice for a special called city council meeting, during which they'll discuss yet again registering lobbyists, placing restrictions on campaign contributions and defining how many members it takes to get a zoning issue pushed through.

But there's a new item on the to-do list: "additional disclosure requirements for gifts received by city council." That comes a little more than a year after Leppert got the council to vote to decline free tix from folks with whom the city does business -- before it was revealed precisely how many council members got on the comp list. Heinbaugh, who didn't have the specifics in front of him when we spoke this morning and promises to send them along shortly, says the proposal will also include new rules concerning when council members have to report someone buying them a meal.

Seems awful optimistic of the mayor to think he can get all this through council by Wednesday. After all, says Heinbaugh, Ann Margolin's proposing doing away with allowing gifts altogether, while he says Angela Hunt "has a list of stuff I haven't seen ... a long list of stuff that goes back to things Laura Miller presented." (Hunt is sending along her list of proposals, which we'll post shortly.) Says Heinbaugh, five council members had demanded another briefing on the mayor's proposals, but "we need to go forward, because if it gets stalled, it will risk petering out."

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