Board deadlocks on new ethics-form procedure; proposal fails 3-3

The Village Board on July 21 considered a proposal to require elected officials and appointed board and commission members to provide signed ethics-code acknowledgments tied to current terms and to establish a standard operating procedure for retaining those records. After discussion, the motion to adopt the ethics-form requirements and SOPs failed on a tie vote. Trustee Jan Miller introduced the item and said the request grew from an effort to confirm that all elected officials and committee members have a current signed ethics acknowledgment on file. Village Clerk Donna Ott said staff already collect oaths and ethics acknowledgments when officials are sworn in and that the clerk's office has been improving recordkeeping; she said staff would comply with any direction from the board to retrieve and update missing acknowledgments. Discussion points included whether the measure was housekeeping or unnecessary agenda clutter, whether annual or term-based reaffirmation was appropriate, and how the policy would apply to volunteers whose terms vary. Several trustees said they had no objection to signing or updating paperwork when asked; other trustees argued the ordinance proposal was overly prescriptive and unnecessary because staff already follow recordkeeping practices. The vote on the motion (which would have required staff to collect updated signed forms where missing and adopt a standard procedure) resulted in a 3-3 tie (three aye, three nay), so the proposal failed and no new SOP was adopted that evening.