Ethics

Public trust and confidence is vital to the strength of any governmental organization and the City of Rio Dell strives to achieve and maintain that confidence through transparency in the actions and decisions of the City Council.

AB 1234 requires mandatory ethics training for all elected or appointed officials who receive compensation or reimbursement for expenses. While there are innumerable statutes, regulations, policies and court decisions that shape California ethics and transparency laws, there some specific fundamental laws that embody many of the issues commonly encountered by the City’s local officials and employees, and that often directly govern their actions. These key laws include:

Brown Act:   Requires that governing bodies of local agencies to conduct open and public meetings, subject to limited exceptions, and to post meeting agendas beforehand.

Government Code Section 1090: Prohibits public officials and employees from being financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity or by any body or board of which they are members. (see full document here)

Political Reform Act: Governs campaign financing and prohibits local agency officials and employees from participating in governmental decisions affecting their financial interests. (read more here)

California Public Records Act: Subject to specified exemptions, requires public agencies to make writings created, used or possessed by the agency available to the public, upon request. (read more here)