I published my Voters Guide yesterday covering the City Council election. I've also been publishing accounts of the ongoing work of the Charter Review Commission. The two topics have kept themselves separate. Today, they collide.
The City is required to review the City's Code of Ethics every two years. Each year, I've been disappointed in the results. The 2016 "review" took a total of 6 minutes, 43 seconds of a council work session. The council had zero questions and zero feedback. Things have gotten a little better since then, but not much. Here are my reports from the last two such reviews.
Where the Charter review intersects with this year's mayor's race is illustrated by a comment made by Mayor Bob Dubey showing his attitude towards the Code of Ethics. It was in response to a proposal by Councilmember Jennifer Justice to add a reporting requirement to the Code of Ethics. In August, 2024, she said, "I'm in favor of including something in our procedures for transparency purposes, about noting via an email or something that you met with a developer about a potential case on this date and discussed XYZ. I think it's just a good transparency practice." Mayor Dubey rejected the idea:
I trust the Council, and I'm not really certain we need to go that far, but developers call, and I'll even say, in economic development, Mr. Magner and I meet with different companies throughout the month with no idea exactly what they're trying to do, but we're trying to encourage economic development in our city. And so we have those meetings. We don't make any promises, but every one of those meetings would have to go into this.Source: Bob Dubey.
"Every one of those meetings would have to go into this." Exactly. That's not a bug. It's a feature. That's what transparency is all about. The rule can't be "report only the meetings where bribes are offered." It has to be, "report all meetings" to keep a public eye on them to prevent bribery from happening. I said, "If Mayor Laura Maczka had been required to report all of her 'meetings' with Palisades developer Mark Jordan, history might have been very different."
There is a related reform that I would also like to see. As part of my coverage of the mayor's race, I examined all candidates' Campaign Finance Reports. I noticed several line items that I wish wouldn't be allowed.
First, there's this one, on the list of contributors to Mayor Dubey's 2025 re-election campaign:
Gary Slagel is on the DART Board of Directors, appointed by the City of Richardson City Council just last summer. Mayor Bob Dubey voted for this appointment. DART board members' compensation is less lavish salaries and more power, influence, and paid travel expenses, but it's still a good gig. The appointment itself is a thing of value. Here is the timeline for Slagel's:
- 06/10/2024: City Council, with Bob Dubey voting, reappoints Gary Slagel to DART.
- 03/29/2025: Gary Slagel donates $100 to Bob Dubey's campaign.
Then there's this one, from two years ago, on the list of contributors to Mayor Dubey's 2023 election campaign, as listed on his semi-annual financial report.
Manasseh Durkin is the "largest land holder in the CORE District", according to The Dallas Morning News. Here is the timeline:
- 05/06/2023: Bob Dubey is elected Mayor of Richardson.
- 05/09/2023: Three days later, Manasseh Durkin donates $465.20 to Bob Dubey's campaign.
- 02/10/2025: City Council, with Bob Dubey voting yes, approves the construction of 279 apartments in downtown Richardson on land controlled by Manasseh Durkin.
Is there anything illegal here? Not that I know, but I could understand a citizen of Richardson believing campaign donations by businessmen to candidates they'll do business with show, just by their nature, an "appearance of impropriety." Our Code of Ethics explicitly says it's intended to prevent that. Accepting money from business interests who have business with the City Council, or not recusing yourself from votes involving business interests who have business with the City Council, just looks bad, at the very least, and could be concealing behavior that really is bad. To be safe, it needs to be prohibited in the Charter.
Accordingly, I would like to see our City Charter strengthened with the additions to Section 2-5 of:
No member of the city council shall accept campaign contributions from anyone who has had business before the city council in the last four years.
and
No member of the city council shall participate in, or vote on, any matter involving anyone who has made a campaign contribution to that city council member in the last four years.
Such tightening of our Ethics Code can be proposed by the Charter Review Commission. It can be proposed by the City Council on their own volition. Or it can be proposed by public petition as was necessary to get direct election of the mayor before the voters in 2012. One thing I know is: if we can just get this proposal before the voters, they'll approve it, maybe even by a larger majority than the 74% of voters who approved direct election of the mayor.
"No laws were broken,
is no longer good enough.
Stricter rules needed."
—h/t ChatGPT
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