This ordinance was heard on first reading on December 15, 2020. Since then further review has taken place and in addition to cleaning up small typographical or grammatical errors and clarifying sections, the following changes have been made:
1. The ordinance deletes section 2-80.1 (d) stating that a Legal Defense shall be provided by the City Attorney’s Office. Officials as defined herein, should procure their own attorneys in defense of ethics charges to avoid conflicts and attorney-client privilege issues.
2. The ordinance deletes the phrase in section 2-80.2 (b) stating that the City will not reimburse for complaints filed for failure to comply with the applicable financial and gift disclosure requirements. If it is a part of an ethics complaint that is without cause, then reimbursement can be made.
3. The Request for reimbursement approval set forth in section 2-80.2 (c) has been streamlined and an appeal to the City Commission has been added.
4. The sentence not extending authorization for reimbursement through an appeal in section 2-80.2 (d) has been removed.
5. The ordinance clarifies in section 2-80.2 (g) that either the State of Florida Commission on Ethics or Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics will determine whether a complaint is frivolous or groundless.
As it relates to number 5, please find attached a case that stands for the proposition that payment for attorneys fees and costs are allowed under section 112.317(7), Florida Statutes, when a person files a complaint against a public officer or employee with a malicious intent to injure the reputation of such officer or by filing the complaint with knowledge that the complaint contains one or more false allegations or with reckless disregard for whether the complaint contains false allegations of fact. Brown v. Comm’n on Ethics, 969 So. 2d 553 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007).