City attorney proposes updated ethics framework

City attorney Steve Sorenson presented the Rhinelander Ethics Committee with three draft governance documents during the committee’s Aug. 10 meeting, urging members to take “a positive attitude moving forward” on updating the city’s ethics framework rather than continuing to react to individual incidents as they arise.

The presentation came under an agenda item labeled “update on city ethics training.”

Sorenson told the committee he had put together the materials — a model code of ethics, a professional conduct and civility policy, and an ethics board policy on public trust duties — as a starting point for discussion, distinct from the city’s existing ethics code found in Section 2.01.18 of the municipal code.

“I think it’s important that you all read the code and know what it says, because that’s where I think that there’s been some misgivings about the code,” Sorenson told members. He noted that while Wisconsin’s state ethics statute governs conflicts of interest broadly, it primarily concerns itself with election-related issues, and state law allows — but does not require — local governments to expand their own ethics codes beyond what the state mandates. “Local governments can write their own codes,” he said. “They can expand the codes. They can do things that are not the state code.”

The model code of ethics

The first document Sorenson presented, which he said he authored himself, was framed as a supplement to the city’s existing code rather than a replacement. It defines several duties Sorenson said are commonly misunderstood by officials and employees alike, starting with the “duty of loyalty” — the idea that public employees and officials owe their loyalty to their employer, meaning the government and the public it serves.

Sorenson illustrated the point with a hypothetical: a city employee who witnesses something improper and posts about it anonymously on social media, rather than reporting it through proper channels, would be breaching that duty of loyalty. “That’s being disloyal to your employer, because you know if you did that at work, you’d be fired in about 12 seconds or less,” he said.

He also walked through the model code’s “duty of good faith,” which he described as an obligation to do one’s job well rather than undermine it, and its provisions on misuse of office — using one’s title or position for personal benefit, such as a council member expecting to avoid a parking ticket because of their office. “That’s what undermines public trust,” Sorenson said. “You’re only a councilman when you’re sitting in that meeting.”

The model code also addresses civility, retaliation, and — at length — social media and public communications. Sorenson said he wanted the committee to spend particular time on that section, describing the use of anonymous or fictitious social media accounts to spread misleading information about city officials or employees as a growing ethical concern. “Social media has become the new way of destroying people,” he said, describing a hypothetical case in which a city employee might use a fake account to discredit a colleague out of a desire for retaliation, advancement, or simply a feeling of power.

Sorenson noted that the model code targets only conduct connected to a person’s city role, not general political speech. He also pushed back on the idea that the First Amendment protects any and all speech, comparing unrestricted claims of a “constitutional right” to say anything to the classic example of falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. “There’s really [nothing in] the United States Constitution that says you have a right to hurt people,” he said. “It’s not protected by the Constitution.”

Professional conduct and civility policy

The second document, Sorenson explained, is not intended to function as an enforceable ethics code but rather as a civility and professionalism policy the committee could recommend to the Common Council for adoption separately. He said violations of that policy would not carry legal consequences on their own, unless conduct became a repeated pattern serious enough to also implicate the ethics code itself.

The draft policy lays out a set of “core commitments” for how city officials and employees conduct city business, including addressing issues, decisions, performance and policy on their merits rather than attacking someone’s personal worth; listening sufficiently to understand another person’s position before responding; using lawful channels for direction, supervision, complaints and personnel concerns; distinguishing verified facts, reasonable inferences and opinions in public communications; and correcting material mistakes promptly. The policy also calls on officials and employees to protect confidential and legally restricted information and to avoid conduct “reasonably calculated to provoke, demean, humiliate, or intimidate” when it serves no legitimate governmental purpose.

On electronic communications and social media specifically, the draft policy sets out a list of dos and don’ts: officials and employees should assume public communications may be widely redistributed and permanent, should not use social media to conduct “a personal campaign of ridicule” against a city employee or official, and should avoid posting in anger when a short delay would allow for fact-checking and a more measured response. The policy also prohibits using a fictitious identity to manufacture the appearance of public support, evade accountability for workplace retaliation, or attack another city participant, and calls for officials to use official city channels for official announcements when practical, clearly distinguishing personal views from official city positions when confusion is likely.

The policy is also explicit that disagreement itself is not misconduct. It states that the policy “does not require harmony, deference, agreement, friendliness, or avoidance of criticism,” and that officials and employees “may challenge assumptions, criticize performance, question expenditures, oppose recommendations, report suspected wrongdoing, advocate unpopular positions, and engage in vigorous debate.” The stated objective, according to the policy, is professional conduct rather than the suppression of dissent — though it adds that disagreement should be expressed “in a polite and professional manner” rather than through personal attacks.

The draft also includes a proposed “civility compact” — a set of seven personal commitments participants in city government would be encouraged to observe, including criticizing ideas and conduct without degrading people, not knowingly misstating another person’s position, using authority for governmental purposes rather than personal gain or retaliation, and defending the right of others to disagree in a professional and constructive manner.

Ethics board policy on public trust duties

The third document Sorenson presented — an ethics board policy specifically addressing the public trust duties of elected officials — echoes many of the same governing principles found in the civility policy and the model code’s duty of good faith, he said, but goes further in laying out a detailed list of conduct considered “proper” and “improper” for officials. It also includes a section on bullying, intimidation, harassment and retaliatory conduct, which Sorenson said he included deliberately.

“I’d like to see the City of Rhinelander... say you have the government power, and you as an ethics committee can say enough of this nonsense,” Sorenson said. “We don’t need bullying. We don’t need intimidation. We don’t need retaliatory conduct.”

Sorenson said the document also lays out objective evaluation criteria intended to guide the committee’s decision-making process when reviewing future complaints.

Committee discussion and next steps

Following the presentation, committee members asked Sorenson to clarify the relationship between the three documents and the city’s existing code. Sorenson acknowledged some overlap between the model code of ethics and the public trust policy.

One member noted that the current city code lacks specific language addressing incidents of the kind of conduct the new documents describe. Sorenson agreed that the existing ordinance does not map clearly onto that kind of behavior, and said the goal of introducing updated documents now was to give the committee stronger footing before any future training.

Committee chair Michael Miller moved to take the three documents under consideration for discussion during the group’s Sept. 14 meeting. City Clerk Austyn Zarda was asked to distribute the documents to committee members who were not present at the meeting.

Closed session

Following the ethics discussion, the committee went into closed session for approximately 25 minutes. Upon returning to open session, no announcements were made. In response to an email requesting clarification on the closed session, Sorenson offered the following.

“I can tell you that the Committee under the statute has the right to instigate its own investigation based on facts it has received or it can act on an actual complaint that was filed,” he wrote. “This is why I am telling  you that the committee does not have anything to act on at this time but if they receive a definitive complaint they will address that complaint.”