Ethics board proposal advances, film permit needs more time

May 13—A proposal to create a Board of Ethics for the city of Oneonta advanced to a vote of the full council while an ordinance regulating filming movie and television productions needs more review, the city Common Council's Legislative Committee determined Monday, May 13.

The city's ethics board would be able to render advisory opinions to city officers and employees on conflicts of interest. The board also may make recommendations about drafting, adopting or amending the city's code of ethics.

The revised municipal law that is going to a vote of the full council establishes the scope, duties and parameters of the ethics board, much of it directly from state law Article 18, which prescribes the powers and duties of an ethics board.

In the past, the ethics board was not a standing committee but populated when needed.

During the meeting, Kaytee Lipari Shue, D-Fourth Ward, had a chance to review and weigh in on the ethics board, as she was absent the last two committee meetings.

She asked about what constituted a conflict of interest.

City Attorney David Merzig said that due to the community's small size, every person is bound to have a family member, friend or neighbor somewhere that could pose a conflict of interest.

"You can't both be a city resident and have no contact with anybody about anything," he said. "The issue is, what is a prohibitive conflict of interest? What we're always defining is, where is the bar at which what you're doing is going beyond the scope of normal interactions in the community."

Shannon McHugh, D-Third Ward, followed up on her concern about defining nepotism.

Merzig said that nepotism is something they had to be careful about defining, because there's no universal definition of how close a family relation needs to be for an appointment to be considered nepotism.

The committee, therefore, had to choose how define it for the purposes of the ethics board.

"Is it just spouse, children, parents?" he said. "Is it is it nephews, nieces, cousins? You have to just have to define what you mean by the term nepotism."

Usually, family relationships among city employees are disclosed as part of the city's hiring process, he added.

The committee discussed the city's proposed ordinance and film permit application.

While the permit application has been set for some time, the municipal law would addresses the guidelines for filming within the city, on both private and public property.

All commercial productions would need a permit. Filming for news gathering purposes would be exempt.

Lipari Shue said that the applicant should be required to give notice of the intent to film to the neighbors, and that there should be an opportunity for nearby residents to object to noise, lights or any other disturbances.

"You're still going to have angry people, if there are people who don't want it to happen," she said.

That lead to the question of whether the council should have the authority to deny filming permits based in neighbor objections.

"I think that filming on the street is an unusual enough occurrence that there should be an opportunity for people to come and say, I don't want this to happen in my street."

The committee also touched on how to enforce penalties for violations and what agency would oversee enforcement.

Merzig said that the city police department would ticket any violation of the city code.

"I think if there's a violation and we can't enforce it, then we'll address it," Merzig said. "I'm just trying to make sure that OPD knows that they're the ones who are going to be on the line."