POLICY CLARIFICATION

Thanks Alabayea. I posted the link to the county's policy because Truthhurts referenced the policy and how to obtain access to the policy.

As I stated Jett is a constitutional officer who does have policies and operating procedures in place. For him to say in an article that he didn't think he was doing anything wrong is hard to believe. He is bound by the ethics laws of the State and County as well. Attending politican campaign rally's in his county vehicle?

But I couldn't take the BCC completely out of the loop due to the following public records and his personal order for a vehicle. Color Blue if possible!:

From:  wayne jordanSent: Fri 12/1/2006 9:53 AMTo:  Fritz Behring; Dave AustinCc:  Tommy Hancock; Don MooreSubject:  FW: Purchase of clerk's vehicle

Dave and FritzFYIWayne
From: James B. Jett [mailto:JettJ@clerk.co.clay.fl.us]
Sent: Thu 11/30/2006 2:32 PM
To: wayne jordan
Cc: Doris Stotler; Norma Dunn
Subject: Purchase of clerk's vehicle

Mr. Jordan:We would like to purchase a replacement vehicle for the Clerk's Office this year from the state bid list.  I would like a Ford SUV unless you have another better recommendation.  This will be replacing a vehicle presently being driven by the County Archivist.  We will transfer the Clerk of Court Jeep to him and transfer that vehicle back to the County Commission, and utilize this as our third vehicle for our office.  Color Dark Blue if possible.  Let me know how to proceed.  Thanks.

To clarify the laws as determined by the State Ethics and the recently voted in Ethics policy of the county.

One provision – Section 112.313(6), Florida Statutes – which is found in the Code of Ethics for Public Officers and Employees, contains a general prohibition on the corrupt misuse of official position and public resources.  The other two statutory provisions contain prohibitions on specific campaign-related conduct.

Code of Ethics Prohibition on Misuse of Official Position and Public Resources. Section 112.313(6), Florida Statutes, provides:

                                    MISUSE OF PUBLIC POSITION – No public

                                    officer [or] employee of an agency … shall

corruptly use or attempt to use his or her official

position or any property or resource which may be

within his or her trust, or perform his of her official

                                    duties, to secure a special privilege, benefit, or

exemption for himself, herself or others … .

“Corruptly” is defined in Section 112.312(9), Florida Statutes, as “done with a wrongful intent and for the purpose of obtaining, or compensating or receiving compensation for, any benefit resulting from some act or omission of a public servant which is inconsistent with the proper performance of his or her public duties.”  The statutory prohibition on the corrupt use of official position and public resources has been held to apply to the improper use of official position and public resources for campaign and other political purposes. 

. The Ethics Commission can verify this information. The link to the Ethics Commission is posted in the blog by PBinCC "Jett". Now we know!

Constitutional officers are on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their position is NOT an 8-5 one as some must believe.  Consequently, if you're on duty at all times, then driving a county owned vehicle is in order.  The constitutional officer may be in grocery store when a call is received which requires a response.  They have to be prepared for an immediate response and cannot be expected to use thir own vehicle to conduct official business.

Again, the county ethics policy only pertains to BCC and their employees.

Just for the record, I believe all this controversary is politically motivated. 

Alabayea for the bloggers and readers I am not in politics. I wouldn't know Mr. Jett if he knocked on my front door. I am not running for office. I do not know anyone personally that is running for the Clerk's position either. So I have no political motivation for providing facts.

I am a taxpayers, resident, and citizen of Clay County. Those are my dollars being wasted.

Your Statement: "Again, the county ethics policy only pertains to BCC and their employees."

Fact: That is incorrect the ethics policy we voted on in the County covers the constitutional officers as well as the school board members. All constitutional officers are under the State Ethics and are bond by the laws of the State of Florida. As a matter of fact let's not take Angela's opinion but the opinion of the County Attorney. Here's an email that describes what is required of the ethics policy that we voted on and who it covers.

From:  Mark H. ScrubySent: Wed 1/31/2007 1:51 AMTo:  Rebecca ClaytonCc:  Fritz BehringSubject:  Ethics code report for 02-02-07 Policy, Rules & Human Services Committee meeting

Rebecca, I suggest we prepare a brief report that starts with the Charter provision (Art. II, Sec. 2.2.E):

      Code of Ethics.  Before July 1, 2007, the Board of County Commissioners shall enact by ordinance a Code of Ethics.  The Code of Ethics shall prescribe standards of conduct for members of the Board, the County Manager, the County Attorney, the County Auditor, all other elected or appointed County Officers including the Superintendent of Schools and members of the School Board, and the deputies and employees of all such officers.  The Code of Ethics shall supplement and not contradict or supersede any statutory or administrative standards of conduct which apply to any such officer or employee.  The Code of Ethics may include, but is not limited to, provisions defining offenses, establishing an ethics board to hear and determine charges, and prescribing penalties within the limits allowed by law.  The Code shall not conflict with the power of the Governor to suspend county officers or of the Senate to remove them from office, or the power of the people to recall them from office.

Then break it down to what’s required and what’s permissive:

Required Elements

1.         The BCC must adopt an ethics code by ordinance before July 1, 2007.

2.         The code must prescribe standards of conduct.

3.         The code must apply to “all . . . elected or appointed County Officers . . . and the deputies and employees of all such officers.”  The term “County Officers” includes all BCC and CCSB members; the County Manager, County Attorney and Commission Auditor; the constitutional officers; and the Superintendent of Schools.

4.         The code must “supplement” but not “contradict or supersede any [applicable] statutory or administrative standards of conduct . . . .”

5.         The code must not conflict with certain constitutional powers regarding the suspension and removal of county officers.

6.         The code must not conflict with the recall rights of the public.

Permissive Elements

1.         The code may define offenses.

2.         The code may provide for an ethics board with adjudicatory powers.

3.         The code may prescribe penalties within (unspecified) legal limits.

Next, attach a copy of the state ethics code (Ch. 112, Part III, FS).

Next, attach a copy of the standards of conduct in the County's Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual (Art. 9).  I think the document attached may be the most recent version, but check with Fran to see whether it was actually adopted or further revised.  I searched the BCC minutes for the past year but found no reference to it, so maybe it wasn’t.  You might have to make a photocopy from the current manual.

I don’t think at this point that we need to attach specimen regulations.  Until we get an idea about what the Committee wants to do, I don’t want to presume anything.  Thoughts?

Mark H Scruby, County Attorney

Clay County, Florida

Post Office Box 1366

Green Cove Springs, FL  32043

(V) 904 269 6377

(F) 904 269 6346

I highlighted the part that includes the constitutional officers.

Now that we had established by the record who is covered. I will add all are covered under the State Ethics Policy. That would include the Governor and the Lt. Governor of the State of Florida. Let's review the Fl State Statutes:

Section 106.15(2), Florida Statutes, prohibits the use by an official who is a candidate of “any state-owned aircraft or motor vehicle …. solely for the purpose of furthering his or her candidacy.” 

Would you say if the Governor of the State of Florida can't do it but the Clerk of Court of Clay County can. I don't think so! Showing up at a political campaign rally in a county vehicle. Please!

Some may have political motivations here but it ain't me. No one forced Mr Jett to do anything. He made his own choices.

Look at Article III of the Clay County Home Rule Charter. 

Section 3.1 says "The offices of Sheriff, Property Appraiser, Tax Collector, Clerk of the Circuit Court and Supervisor of Elections shall remain as elected constitutional offices and the powers,  duties and functions shall not be altered by this Home Rule Charter, except that the powers, duties and functions of the Clerk of the Circuit Court shall be limited to those of clerk of the circuit court and recorder as described in Article VIII, s1(d), Constitution of the State of Florida". 

That being said, since constitutional officers operate directly under the Florida Constitution and not the County Charter, where does the BCC get its power to enact a county ordinance that would apply to them? 

Article !!, Section 2.2(E) of the Clay County Home Rule Charter states the BCC cannot adopt an Administrative Code that includes elected constitutional officers. 

You are correct, all public officers and employees are bound by the Code of Ethics contained in Chapter 112, Part III, Florida Statutes. 

Wasteful spending is occurring at all levels of government.  I, too, would like to see more controls.  

Alabayea I am aware of the Home Rule Charter that Clay County is governed under.

As a matter of fact Mr. Jett and the Sheriff both were diametrically opposed to the County enacting an ordinance that would include them. He threatened to take the Commissioner to court if he proceeded with the ethics policy.

You asked, " where does the BCC get its power to enact a county ordinance that would apply to them?" The voters voted overwhelmingly to enact an ethics policy that included them. Power was derived by the voters.

Here's an email that Mr. Jett sent to support his position of taking the BCC to court. However, he would need to take the voters to court because they were the ones who voted to include them not the Commissioners. They were bound by the law to enact the ordinance by July 1, 2007 or they would have been in violation of the laws.

From:  James Jett [jettj@clerk.co.clay.fl.us]Sent: Thu 5/31/2007 8:25 AMTo:  'sheriffbeseler@claysheriff.com'; 'wweeks@ccpao.com'; 'info@claycountytax.com'; 'cvallen@comcast.net'; 'Barbara A. Kirkman'; Fritz Behring; 'Rob Bradley'; Mark H. Scruby; Harold Rutledge; 'George Bush'; Doug Conkey; Chereese Stewart; 'dowens@mail.clay.k12.fl.us'; 'jbbickner@mail.clay.k12.fl.us'

The Seminole County Constitutional Officers won the Circuit Lawsuit regarding the County Charter imposing ethics rules, auditing rules, etc... on them.  I will be getting the final judicial ruling around June 15th and I'll forward you a copy.  Just thought you might want to know.  Thanks. 

Regardless of the county ethics policy in my opinion Mr. Jett may have violated the State Ethics Policy on the Code of Ethics Prohibition on Misuse of Official Position and Public Resources.

I agree with your statement 100%: "Wasteful spending is occurring at all levels of government.  I, too, would like to see more controls."  

Angela, powers do come from voters.  The BCC derives its authority and powers from what is given to it by the charter and state law.  It has no power to regulate constitutional officers. 

In order to do that the voters would have to abolish the constitutional officers and create new ones under the charter.  That has not been done.

Voters on 11-7-06 only approved an amendment to charter creating an ethics code and mandating the BCC enact an ordinance supplementing Chapter 112 Florida Statutes. 

Interesting that you should bring up this topic. At the CAN debate that was one of the questions presented to the CPVR speaker. That individual was on the last CRC and is 'the head' of CPVR. One the recommendations the previous CRC made for the next CRC to look at and think about was bringing the Constitutionals under the Charter.

I think I caught this information correctly but if not I'm sure someone will let me know.

In order to do that the voters have to abolish the Constitutional positions and recreate them as new positions that fall under the charter. That sounds simple enough but there is a big problem that may make it nearly impossible to do that.

The CPVR group is trying to get a petition on the ballot to require a 2/3 majority of votes in order to abolish an elected position. This petition seems to be their answer to solving the actions of CTLAC trying to abolish the 2 new at-large positions. They are trying really hard to protect their unopposed candidate's apparent rise to that chair position.

Now I'm pretty sure that if they get this petition on the ballot and it happens to pass it is going to a really cold day in a generally very warm place before we can ever get 2/3 of the voters to agree to anything.

This would certainly protect their new at-large positions for quite some time. But in the mean time it would also stymie nearly any hope of getting the constitutionals under the charter.

Either they are so clever that they outsmarted themselves or they just don't care about anything but protecting that chair seat. I'll leave it to you to make up your mind which it is.

Mike Heemer http://24.23.126.8/ Petition for choice (5 or 7) in Nov.

Alabayea first let me say in my personal opinion the ethics policy that was enacted by ordinance did not have any more substance than the laws given by the State of Florida. So when they were debating the issue for the voters to consider I was not impressed. I’m still not impressed. We had laws and ethics in place when all the problems happened in the county. However, no one enforced them then and it seems no one enforces them now.

With that said it was determined that enacting an ordinance would give them more substance than just a policy and the ordinance should include the constitutional officers and the CCSB. Which had to be enacted by July 1, 2007 by the Board of County Commissioners.

However the Commissioners have more power than they care to use when it comes to actions of public officials in the county. I will refer you to the CRC Meeting 05-04-06 when they discussed the non-interference clause. This is the statements by the attorney Mr. Watts: This amendment also recognizes the right of the Board acting as a body to conduct investigations of any county department or office.

Rob Bradley: Mr. Watts’, I wanted to ask a question to clarify the last sentence of the proposal where it discusses investigations by the county commission into the department or office of the County, “Is it correct to say that this includes investigations of the constitutional offices?”

Allen Watts: It depends on the purpose of the investigation. Every legislative body has the inherent power to investigate and to inform itself so it can consider whatever legislation might be necessary to correct any present practices that it thinks are improper or to review the budget; these are inherent powers of the legislative body. The Charter gives all of the legislative power of the county, the whole government including the constitutional officers, gives that legislative authority to the Board of County Commissioners. It is therefore my review that the Board of County Commissioners has the same authority to investigate the Constitutional Officers that the legislature itself would have. It is an inherent power; the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized that the legislative bodies has this power, in fact, as far as the Florida Legislature is concerned, it is spelled out in Article III, Section IV of the State Constitution. The power is there whether or not it is spelled out; the purpose here was to simply make it explicit.

Rob Bradley: When it says that the Board of County Commissioners can require reports from all county officers as an employee, is it fair to say that that means they can require reports from the constitutional officers?

Allen Watts: That is correct. Of course, if the Constitutional Officers were unwilling, the remedy would be for the Board of County Commissioners to go to a Circuit Judge and ask for enforcement of the Boards’ subpoena. The Circuit Judge couldn’t consider objection from the county officers that investigation is outside of the legitimate right of the Commission to investigate for the purposes of adopting legislation. You can’t simply investigate because you are on a witch hunt but you can investigate if it will lead to better legislation.

When you take in to account the Clerk asked the BCC for a new vehicle per the email it was with the intent it would be used for work purposes. If he is violating the laws of the State of Florida by misuse of his position and county resources then I believe they have the inherent power to investigate. The ethics ordinance gives substance to that investigation as well.

The scope of the ethics policy states:

Sec. 2-204. Statement of Policy.

It is the policy of the county that public servants work for the benefit of the citizens of the county. To this end, all public servants should meet a high standard of ethics. It is the responsibility of each public servant to act in a manner that promotes public trust and confidence in government. In particular, public servants should be honest with the public, be good stewards of the assets and fiscal resources entrusted to them, not use their positions for unlawful gain, and avoid creating the appearance of impropriety.

Section 112.326, Florida Statutes, permits the board to impose more stringent standards of conduct and disclosure requirements, beyond those specified in the state code, provided that those standards of conduct and disclosure requirements do not otherwise conflict with the provisions thereof.

Hopefully I have explained this well enough to make clear the points I am making here concerning the ethics ordinance we voted upon. However, the ethics ordinance and the non-interference clause is only as good as the elected officials that enforce these laws. With that said I can show you numerous time a prior Commissioner has violated the laws under the present rules and what is covered under the State laws but has not been enforced.

If the Commissioners have no intent on acting upon this information provided in a news report. Then it will need to be enforced by a person who files it with the Ethics Commission personally. I’m certain given the pictures and the news article of Mr. Jett’s own statements it will be investigated given the laws that are in place concerning ethics by the State and the ethics we voted upon in the county which is as you say a supplement to the State’s requirements.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.  If you have fifteen different attorneys, you'll have fifteen different opinions. 

Well I used the work of 2 different attorney's both of which I have paid for with taxdollars (Watts and Scruby) and if someone cares to file against Jett. If it is found that he violated the State Ethics laws. Then I think we should then file against the Commissioners for not doing their job. Continuing to run the county amuck which has resulted in considerable amounts of taxdollars to clean up their messes. Yet the results are continued situations they fail to address at the detriment to the taxpayers. I call it Waste, Fraud, and Abuse of government.

I'm sure we have all heard and complained about our legislators investigating steroids. Yet if our legislators (Commissioners) fail to investigate this local situation then they need to be removed from office as well. In my opinion they are a detriment to progress and the reasons we have such problems in the county.

Bring the Constitutionals under the Charter would not be a bad idea. Although the Commissioners have powers under the Charter. They have limited powers to control their budgets. The Constitutional Officers submit a budget the County Manager reviews that budget. Then he informs them of the money that they have allocated by the revenues the county takes in. The county manager and the constitutional officer debate the issues. They then adjust their budgets accordingly. The Commissioners then approve the budget.

If they were brought under the Charter then the County Manager could then have levels of budgetary control over their budgets. As constitutional officer under the present system it gives them very limited levels of budgetary control.

The Sheriff who consumes the largest amount of the budget should be the first to undergo the change. If the voters agreed then he would be brought under the Charter and named the Public Safety Director. He would then be hired by the County Manager (not elected) and under the executive part of the government. 

Angela;

I agree. I think bringing the Constitutionals under the Charter would be a great idea. It just seems to me that if the CPVR amendment to require 66% to do away with an elected position it would make it really hard to do.

Could we actually get 66% of the people to say yes to abolishing those positions so that we could do a seamless recreation of the positions that fell under the Charter?

I think this proposed amendment is just to protect the Chair position but it might have some collateral problems that were unforeseen. Or if they were, the CPVR didn't care so long as they got what they wanted. 

Mike Heemer http://24.23.126.8/ Petition for choice (5 or 7) in Nov.

Finder, You have gone to the heart of the matter.   I wondered how long it would take for someone to figure out the consquences of that proposed charter amendment by CPVR.  Don't think much thought went into what the results might be.

A good example of why one should be careful of what you ask for - you just might get it!

I think they have a saying, "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face" which is a warning not to act out of pique or pursue revenge in such a way as to damage yourself more than the object of your anger.

Angela;

True. I'm not sure that CPVR really cares as long as their Chair is protected. Would it really hurt them if we couldn't get the constitutionals under the charter?

Mike Heemer http://24.23.126.8/ Petition for choice (5 or 7) in Nov.

Mike, you're right.  The CPVR only seems interested in protecting their chair, and with that protection there will be more "opportunities" (BCC seats) to cast votes.  The decisions about development have little to do with any of the Constitutionals.That makes those offices not as important the the CPVR's political needs.  

I concur, there are unintended consequences that were probably not thought through.  Unless the folks behind the big campaign war chests and the CPVR think that they ALWAYS make the right decisions and ABSOLUTELY know what is best for the county.

Better think about that one before deciding to abolish elected positions in favor of appointed ones.

If you want voter control, then you have to elect.

Better think about that one before deciding to abolish elected positions in favor of appointed ones.

If you want voter control, then you have to elect.

Better think about that one before deciding to abolish elected positions in favor of appointed ones.

If you want voter control, then you have to elect.