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Resident urges San Marcos council to address ethics letter before meet-and-confer extension vote
Summary
A resident urged the San Marcos City Council to seek legal guidance and consider recusal rules after citing an Ethics Commission letter about a past council vote, asking council to clarify whether members should sign disclosures before discussing a police meet-and-confer extension scheduled for the evening meeting.
A resident who joined the Nov. 5 San Marcos City Council work session remotely urged the council to review an Ethics Commission decision and to clarify recusal rules before discussing an extension of the police “meet-and-confer” agreement later that evening.
Max Philbaker told council he had received a Nov. 1, 2023 Ethics Commission letter to Mark Gleason that, in Philbaker’s reading, found a violation of “section 2.423 a 1 of the San Marcos code of ethics” related to a vote to approve a meet-and-confer agreement following campaign contributions. Philbaker said the letter indicated a finding sufficient to warrant a letter of admonition and asked the council to consider whether members who received contributions from police or firefighter associations should recuse themselves from discussion and votes on the extension.
Philbaker urged City legal counsel to explain recusal requirements and whether a simple disclosure form — which he characterized as a “low bar” — would address appearances of impropriety before the council considered the extension at its 6 p.m. meeting. “I would ask that you all, before considering this item in the 6PM meeting, that you ask Sam Aguirre, again, our legal counsel, whose goal is to make sure that everything we do is above board and meets every aspect of our city code and ordinances, including our ethics code,” Philbaker said.
He also told the council that the 2022 meet-and-confer agreement called for staff and the San Marcos Police Officers Association to meet in good faith and said, to his knowledge, there were no good faith meetings before the requested extension. Philbaker asked staff and council to explain whether the lack of meetings was due to staff not requesting them or to the association declining to meet.
No formal council action was taken during the work session on that topic; the council was scheduled to consider the meet-and-confer extension at a later public meeting. The resident’s comments referenced an Ethics Commission finding and a past vote but did not constitute a legal ruling by the city council. City legal counsel or the Ethics Commission would need to confirm any required recusal obligations or remedies before the council acted.
