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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, May 19, 2008 Page 8 Three members of the Ethics Commission were present: Acting Chair LuAnne Pederson; Melissa Weldon; and Patrick Schmidt. Ms. Pederson advised that the resignation of current Chair, Commissioner Mike Schneider was pending due his recent move outside the City limits. City Manager Malinen advised Councilmembers that staff had not yet received Mr. Schneider's written resignation letter. Ms. Pederson publicly recognized Mr. Schneider, noting that he'd been very instrumental and active on the Ethics Commission and accomplishment of their work to-date. Ms. Pederson provided a brief summary of last year's activities; achievement of the two main goals of the Commission: creation of a procedure for people subject to Ethics Code to obtain an advisory opinion; and training documentation. Ms. Pederson advised that City staff had collated the information and that the City Manager was responsible to distribute the information as applicable to newly- appointed commissioners, new hires on staff as applicable, and to newly-elected officials. Ms. Pederson reviewed the various materials in the packet and applica- ble resolutions included, noting that City Attorney Scott Anderson had prepared many of the materials, along with providing the initial presentation. Ms. Pederson noted that participants at the first training session seemed to engage; and advised that a DVD had been made of the training session for those newly-appointed or newly-elected, or those unable to attend the training session. Ms. Pederson noted that another project of the Commission had been to work on development of internal procedures for handling ethics complaints. Mayor Klausing expressed his appreciation for the very impressive work by the Commission, and that of Commissioner Schneider as well; opining that they'd done a masterful job of getting up and running; and further opined that he was very impressed with the pamphlet and DVD. Discussion included lack of any advisory opinion requests to-date; future projects or initiatives of the Commission, including planning with the City Attorney for this year's training, with the Commission seeking City Council input on a revised training session, and their preference for annual training for "refresher" purposes. Councilmembers were supportive of annual ethics training to keep things in the forefront; with Councilmember Roe suggesting input from staff, Councilmembers and/or Advisory Commissioners for hypothetical situations they might encounter, noting that that portion of the training seemed to get the most interest at the last training session. Ms. Pederson acknowledged the recommendation; and noted that City Manager Malinen was currently preparing a questionnaire to obtain just such feedback.