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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Los Angeles City Council approved a motion Wednesday seeking to update the city's ethics laws and recusal notification form to promote transparency and reduce potential conflicts of interest.
Council members voted 11-0 to instruct the City Attorney's Office to prepare amendments to the city's ethics laws and recusal notification form, also known as Form 51. Council members Bob Blumenfield, Traci Park, Nithya Raman and Katy Yaroslavsky were absent during the vote.
Once drafted, the amendments will be considered by the Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform and then go to a final vote by the City Council.
If adopted, elected city officials would be required to file a Form 51 to disclose information about their recusal -- including their reason for the recusal, the date of the relevant meeting involving the recusal, the agenda number and whether the item involved the making of a contract.
Currently, city board and commission members, as well as elected city officials are required to file a statement of economic interests upon assuming office and once a year through the duration of their term. However, elected officials are not required to file a Form 51 or otherwise provide written documentation of their state-mandated recusals.
On Nov. 8, 2023, the Ethics Commission recommended updates to the Governmental Ethics Ordinance to extend to city officials the existing Form 51 already given to board and commission members.
According to a report filed in December 2023, the Ethics Commission also recommended allowing electronic filings of Form 51, which are currently done via paper filing. They say it would modernize the process and "promote faster, more convenient filing."
Additionally, the commission recommended that the filing of the form be done within seven days after the date of the meeting instead of the current 15 days, and that filers be required to identify city reference numbers affected by recusals, as well as adding a Form 51 to the council file index whenever it relates to an item that has a council file number at the time it was filed.
The final recommendation was to exempt confidential information from being disclosed on a recusal notification form in a case for which a City Council member must be recused from a closed session item -- as allowed by state law.