Santa Monica’s strict rules on gifts and gratuities may be loosened a little pending a study of similar rules in neighboring cities.
The current rules were approved earlier this year and prohibit Councilmembers from attending events or eating free food unless they are doing so in an official capacity. However, just what constitutes a ceremonial role and at what point are the City’s interests served by Councilmembers attending functions has become a point of confusion, forcing multiple case-by-case rulings by city staff.
In response, Mayor Lana Negrete and Councilmember Barry Snell asked the City Manager and City Attorney to survey other cities and bring amendments to the Gift Resolution and Gratuity Ordinance to create exceptions for attending City of Santa Monica economic development and cultural events in which Councilmembers are expected to attend to represent the City.
“I want to be cognizant that [the last rule change] created a lot of questions in which the city attorney's office has to spend however many hundreds of dollars an hour they have paid to discern whether or not you could attend an event,” Negrete said, introducing the item.
“Furthermore, there was the question going back and forth of whether or not I could attend Frieze – or if any of the councilmembers could without having to pay – in which the Economic Development Department realized this is ridiculous, because we want our city councilmembers to be represented at these events,” she added.
Snell concurred, “I signed on to this because I’d like to see how other cities are handling it. Our rules at this point in time are really, really strict and I want to make sure that I'm able to attend events and that other councilmembers are able to attend events without jeopardizing the gift resolution ordinance.”
“Nobody is doing this job for a free meal or the opportunity to get a ticket somewhere. I think we're all genuinely up here to serve the community,” Negrete said, adding that it was nonsensical to be in a position where members of council would avoid going to an event “because they're afraid of being in conflict with this rule.”
Hall offered his opinion, “I would point out that in section 1c sub paragraph seven of the resolution we passed on February 11, it specifically states that the term ‘gift’ does not include ‘free admission to a ticketed event for the official and one guest, where the official performs a ceremonial role at the event, such as throwing out the first pitch or free admission food, nominal items, such as pens, notepads or similar items available to all attendees at the event where the official makes a speech.’
“I inherently have a deep problem with us being invited to events that are hundreds of dollars for the average person to attend by virtue of our position. You know, while I appreciate the invitation to events like Cirque du Soleil, Frieze and the Equality Awards. Cirque and Frieze are businesses that operate on city land, and they come to the city council for permission to do so,” he said, before being corrected by City Attorney Doug Sloan that Frieze could be approved by the City Manager.
Hall continued, “I just have a deep problem with organizations that lobby the City or lobby us as individual councilmembers or as a body that we would be given, you know, free stuff or free attendance at these events without us having some form of official action to do there.”
“You've got to create bright line rules,” Councilmember Ellis Raskin said, adding, “I mean there very well could be situations in which a member of the Council goes to restaurants and says, ‘I'm entitled to eat free here because my official capacity is council member. I'm promoting our city's business by doing meals and letting people know about this,” before conceding that he was “pulling that out of thin air.”
Raskin continued, “But I'm also a little bit concerned about creating even more staff work by looking at, you know, going out and spending, I don't know how much time this can take, but looking at all the other communities, seeing how they're doing it…”
Negrete retorted, “We're doing it for all the other items and it takes more time every time we go to an event and lawyers have to get involved in the City Attorney's office to discern whether or not someone can attend. This has happened four times since we made the rule, and it's taken multiple staff members.”
Councilmember Natalya Zernitskaya was in agreement with Negrete’s and Snell’s proposal, but added, “When a motion is made on this, if the maker and the seconder would be amenable to including that in the direction to the City Manager and City Attorney, to look at other creative ways to help allow folks to attend these types of events, I would be supportive of that.”
Negrete made a motion with this friendly amendment that was seconded by Snell. Every councilmember with the exception of Hall and Raskin voted yes and thus it passed 5-2.
