To: Interested, Alert and Concerned Citizens

From: Carla Miller, Ethics Officer, City of Jacksonville

With the help of many citizen groups, Government Ethics provisions were placed back into our City Charter in November, 2010; the details were to be worked out in future bills. The bills that give life to the Charter Ethics Section are now pending with City Council:

Bill 2011-167 Details on the powers and duties of the Independent Ethics Commission for the city.

Bill 2011-197 Details of the creation of the citywide Ethics, Compliance and Oversight Office (an office to coordinate anti-corruption and ethics activities for all agencies of the city--to be done with no additional cost to the city--just rearranging existing resources); The Executive Director of this office is hired by the Independent Ethics Commission.

These bills will advance anti-corruption efforts in our city and are based upon 3 years of study by the Ethics Commission, national best practices and much citizen input.

What to do to help:

1. Contact the 7 City Council Rules/Ethics Committee members-- CALL AND/OR EMAIL (see names below or send to me to forward to them: ethics@coj.net ) between now and May 22, 2011.

2. Send this email to your friends and ask them to get familiar with the bills and to also get involved.

2. Sign up for the "interested party list" to be sent emails on updates to what is going on with the bills. Do this by sending an email to ethics@coj.net and put "sign me up for IP list!" in the subject line of your email.

3. When (and if) the bills get passed by Rules, they go to all 19 Council members for a final vote. Then send another email or call urging passage of the bills in June.

Timetable for bill to be passed by July 1: (important date, because new Mayor and City Council come in then and all focus will be on the budget.)

Must get to Rules Committee and be passed out on June 6 or June 20; to be forwarded to the full Council the following Tuesday (June 14 or 28).

All 3 bills are listed on this page and there is a video of the Rules Sub-Committee hearing on the ethics bills held on April 20th.

The Chair of that subcommittee (Council Member Art Shad) who is the sponsor of these 3 bills is trying to get another meeting set for the week of May 23rd to discuss any amendments to the bill.

Since so many citizens came and spoke in favor of the bills at the April 20th meeting, I believe the next meeting will just be for the Council Members to discuss the bills.