reprimand - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T13:46:18Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/reprimandDelray Beach: Jacquet, ethics panel settle on fine and reprimandhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-jacquet-ethics-panel-settle-on-fine-and-reprimand2017-11-01T18:00:00.000Z2017-11-01T18:00:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong><br /> <br /> Settling to save taxpayers’ money, state Rep. Al Jacquet agreed to pay $300 in fines and receive a letter of reprimand over a $35 parking ticket he received while serving as vice mayor of Delray Beach.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960741465,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="101" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960741465,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-left" alt="7960741465?profile=original" /></a> His attorney, J.C. Planas, represented Jacquet at the Oct. 12 meeting of the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics. <br /> “It was the honorable thing to do,” Planas said about Jacquet’s settlement. “He admitted to the violations and wanted to save the taxpayers time and money of a public hearing.” <br /> Jacquet could not be reached for comment.<br /> At the ethics commission meeting, Planas argued for the word “unintentional” before the violation, saying the commission likely would get more settlements if elected officials could agree to accept letters of reprimand and pay fines for ethics code violations. <br /> Three ethics commissioners agreed. But the vice chair, Clevis Headley, did not. <br /> Headley said elected officials receive ethics training and sign a form saying they know the rules. <br /> The four commissioners unanimously agreed to accept the settlement.<br /> The ethics case against Jacquet, who represents parts of Boynton Beach and Delray Beach, stems from a parking ticket he received in April 2016.<br /> Jacquet initially claimed he forgot to put his city-issued parking pass on the car’s dashboard when he was on commission business and was able to have the ticket voided. An internal Police Department review later revealed that city commissioners don’t receive parking passes. <br /> Jacquet had broached the parking-pass subject at least twice while he served on the Delray Beach City Commission.<br /> At a January 2014 workshop, Jacquet floated the idea of a parking pass for commissioners. <br /> “Wouldn’t that be unethical?” said then-Commissioner Adam Frankel.<br /> Mayor Cary Glickstein said at the workshop he didn’t support the idea. <br /> “The Police Department doesn’t support it,” he said. “From the parking management perspective of what we are trying to do, the optics don’t look good.”</p></div>Delray Beach: City employees’ ethics infractions addressedhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-city-employees-ethics-infractions-addressed2016-11-30T18:51:10.000Z2016-11-30T18:51:10.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong><br /><br /> Two city employees received “letters of instruction” recently from the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics. Another Delray Beach employee’s case was too unclear for the commission to make a ruling.<br /> City firefighter Joseph Lang had a side business that supplied automated external defibrillators to the city’s Fire-Rescue Department. <br /> He told investigators that one of the fire chiefs asked whether his company could supply the devices to the city. He said he completed a form and that the Finance Department and fire command approved it. <br /> Even so, the city forbids its employees from entering into contracts with it. Because of the statute of limitations, investigators were able to go back only two years from the receipt of the complaint. For the period that began Jan. 1, 2013, and ended Dec. 31, 2015, the city paid Lang’s company $10,834.51.<br /> At the Nov. 3 Ethics Commission meeting, Lang received a letter of instruction explaining the city’s and county’s ethics policies. <br /> Also at that meeting, officials reviewed Rashod Smith’s case. A supervisor at Pompey Park, he gave the city’s human resources director the keys to the pavilion and the security code to host her family’s Thanksgiving Day dinner there in 2015. He did not receive payment for the use of the pavilion, or for the overtime required by a parks employee to clean up after the dinner.<br /> Smith received a letter of instruction outlining the city’s and county’s ethics policies. <br /> City Manager Don Cooper in April reprimanded Human Resources Director Tennille Decoste, who lost a day’s pay over the incident.<br /> Cooper forwarded information on the incident to the Ethics Commission. <br /> In August, the commission’s attorney advised that the facts were not legally sufficient to prove Decoste had violated the code of ethics.<br /> In September, Decoste asked that the reprimand letter be removed from her personnel file and that she receive the day’s pay.<br /> Cooper agreed but wrote, “As a cautionary note, you need to be aware of the impacts of using city facilities due to your position and need to consider those impacts when making any request.”</p></div>