Seven Sugar Land residents were appointed April 5 to the Citizens Task Force on Ethics to review the city’s code for disparities with the state version of the code. The task force was created in response to the Texas’ legislature amending its ethics laws for local governments in 2015. Sugar Land created its own Rules of Ethical Conduct for city officials in 2005 to supplement state code, Sugar Land City Manager Allen Bogard said.
The City Council approved the appointees—nominated by Mayor James Thompson—from 19 applications. Members will give the City Council a draft report for any changes in November.
“As I understand it, the city established an ethics code 10 years ago, so this would be the first review of it,” task force member Al Abramczyk said. “It’s our job to see if there’s any changes needed in that particular code [based on current state standards].”
The task force’s meetings will be open to the public, he said.
Other members include Chairman Corinth Davis, Shawn Blaylock, Thomas Demont Sr., Gary Hartenburg, Andrew Wolf and Sumita Ghosh. Abramcyzk said he has served on city commissions before, but Ghosh said she is new to Sugar Land’s boards and commissions.
“I’m a patent attorney, but I have a personal interest in ethics,” she said. “I really wanted to catch up to speed on what the new legislation is.”
Two examples of necessary updates include House bills 23 and 1295, passed during the 2015 Legislative Session. City officials’ reporting threshold for gifts decreased from $500 per gift of lodging, transportation, entertainment and food as a guest, to $100 aggregate of all gifts.
Disclosure rules between city officials and vendors for contracts larger than $50,000 also became stricter, according to city documents.
“We can continue to have a corruption-free environment where citizens can expect that the decisions made by public officials are free of [ethical concerns],” Bogard said.
He said Sugar Land is trying to find potential conflicts and will also look at other localities’ codes.
“It’s our intent to try to get the revised code on the books by the end of the calendar year,” he said.
