At the urging of the League of California Cities, the Santa Maria City Council is joining ranks with other municipalities by considering adopting an ethics policy.

The council is slated to vote on the policy at Tuesday's meeting at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 110 E. Cook St.

Establishing individual ethics policies is one of the three main platforms for the League of California Cities board of directors, said Dave Mullinax, who is the regional representative for the league in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Mullinax noted that of the 25 cities in his division, 14 or 15 have adopted ethics policies.

“It's mostly preventative,” Mullinax said about the reason for the current push. “I think organizations, especially an organization like us that is so based on public trust, it's something we want to maintain.”

The state Legislature has also weighed-in on the ethics issue. Last October, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 1234, which requires local agency officials to receive ethics training.

At just more than four pages, Santa Maria's proposed policy would cover elected officials, appointed officials and all city employees.

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Mullinax noted that the directive from the league covers elected officials but could “definitely be for city staff as well. Clerks, city managers, department heads - the public trust is needed at all levels.”

“The proper operation of democratic government requires that public officials be independent, impartial and responsible in their judgment and actions to the people,” reads the preamble of the policy.

It goes on to say, “City employees are also in a position of public trust and have an obligation, even higher than the private sector, to do their jobs well in the spirit of public service. As such, city officials and employees shall conduct themselves in an ethical manner, both on and off the job, and in a manner that does not present the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Before the final draft of the policy was created, city staff sat down with the various employee bargaining groups to go over the document's language, said Rick Haydon, assistant city manager.

According to the council staff report, the only group that did not reply to requests for input was the Santa Maria Police Officers Association. A call to an association representative was not returned.

Haydon noted that many aspects of the draft policy are existing policies in some departments but not in others, and this ethics document brings them into one place.

Bruce Corsaw with the Service Employees International Union 620, which has about 187 members on city staff, said many parts of the document were already in the city's policies and procedures but he did have some reservations about the ethics policy's references to employees' off time.

“Not that (we) recommend that people do things wrong outside (work),” Corsaw said. “But it gives the city lots of power on how employees conduct themselves on off time. The city staff works very, very hard ... and now they want to tell them what to do on personal time.”

“I think it's a great document for elected leaders,” Corsaw added. “Our main question is, does this apply to management as well. We hope everyone is ethical but does it get into management's off time.”

The policy also addresses conflicts of interest, gifts and favors and conduct at public meetings.

If the policy is adopted, the ethical standards would be included in the city's orientation program.

If complaints are lodged, they would be dealt by the City Council or whatever commission the complaint was generated from.

Malia Spencer can be reached at 739-2219 or mspencer@santa

mariatimes.com.

March 20, 2006