Richmond councillors have voted to task city staff with reviewing code of conduct options for council following a heated debate that led to a 5-3 vote on the issue last week.
Coun. Carol Day brought the matter forward at a general purposes committee meeting on Sept. 17, when she proposed that staff create a “code of ethics” for councillors that is similar to the ethics followed by city managers in B.C.
“There is a concern in the community regarding a code of ethics for councillors and we can’t have people mistrustful of council,” Day told the Richmond News. “What I believe is a big contributing factor is the fact that we have developers on council.”
Currently, the Local Government Management Association of B.C. has a 13 point code of ethics in place for city management.
In particular, Day said the point that states management shall “not deal in property directly or indirectly within the municipality he/she serves other than his/her personal residence without first informing the Municipal Council, in writing, in open council meeting” would be helpful for Richmond’s council.
“Why don’t those same rules apply to councillors,” Day asked, saying the current city’s guidelines to address conflict of interest are “watered down” in comparison.
“I don’t have any problem with a developer being on council as long as they’re developing in another city,” she said.
Judie Schneider, council candidate with the Richmond Citizens’ Association – which has spoken out about the need for conflict of interest rules in Richmond – echoed Day’s call.
“We need to modernize the way we are running civic government,” Schneider told the News.
“I would like to see developers barred from developing in their own city if they are on that city’s council…if you want to be a developer and you want to sit on Richmond city council, go develop in New Westminster or Surrey or Chilliwack.”
For Schneider, developers are particularly problematic on council because she says many of council’s decisions are based around development and because financial stakes are so high.
“When the majority of your job is actually dealing with development then that’s where the greatest risk of conflict of interest is constantly coming into play,” she said.
“It’s also such a lucrative career. The stakes are high for developers. The stakes are much higher than, say, if you had a firefighter on council and they were voting about something to do with the fire services in Richmond. They don’t stand to gain millions of dollars on what they might vote, but developers do.”
Schneider also pointed to teachers, who must resign from their school board position if elected as a school board trustee.
“If you’re a teacher in Richmond and you teach at a Richmond school, you cannot sit as a school board trustee because there is a perceived conflict of interest,” she said. “It’s no different.”
Day said tensions ran high in the meeting while the matter was discussed and, in the end, council voted to ask staff to prepare recommendations for the Nov. 5 council meeting, following the election. Couns. Bill McNulty, Linda McPhail and Derek Dang all voted against the motion. They did not respond to a request for comment by publication deadline.
