Board Member Trainings

Download the Basic Board Procedures training audio file

This training session will cover the basic Rules of Board procedure.

City boards and committees must conduct their business according to certain rules of procedure as provided by state statute and city ordinance.

Some city boards and committees also have their own special rules of procedure so long as they do not conflict with state or local laws.

Together, these rules are often referred to as Parliamentary procedure.

The purpose of parliamentary procedure is to make board business more efficient, protect the right to due process of law, and to maintain order and dignity in the government decision making process.

This training session will cover the most common and basic rules of procedure for city boards and committees and will help guide you to find more information about rules peculiar to your board or committee or how to get help from city staff if you have any questions for local government boards, always the first and most important rules of board procedure are Florida's Sunshine Law and the State Ethics Code.

We cover these important topics in other training sessions, but just remember that all other Rules of Board procedure are secondary to conducting the public's business in open sunshine meetings and avoiding conflicts of interest.

The basic Rules of Board procedure for City of Orlando boards and committees are Provided by Article 10, Chapter 2 of the Orlando City Code.

The entire Orlando City Code is online at municode.com.

This website contains local government codes of ordinances for cities and counties throughout the country, including Orlando.

The key elements of the City Code's Rules of order are as:

1. All persons appearing before city boards must abide by the Rules of Order provided by Code and the Rules of Order adopted by the board itself.
2. Persons wishing to address a City Board must secure permission from the Board Chair. This is done by filling out an appearance request form and delivering it to the board secretary.
3. Each person addressing the Board must speak from the lectern, must give his or her name and address, and is limited to five minutes unless more or less time is approved by the board.
4. A majority of all the members of the Board constitute a quorum and no business may be conducted unless a quorum is present.
5. Silence by a member during the taking of a vote is considered an affirmative vote.
6. Board chairs may offer motions, may second motions, and must vote on measures like any other board member.
7. And finally, for all other matters of procedure and order not covered by state statute or the City Code, Roberts Rules of Order govern the meetings of Orlando boards and committees.

Roberts Rules of Order is by far the most common Rules of Parliamentary Procedure used today.

Currently in its 11th edition and at over 700 pages in length, Roberts Rules can at first seem daunting and complicated.

But the basic rules of parliamentary procedure are fairly straightforward and easy to grasp, especially when you consider the following fundamental:

1. Boards must deal with one subject at a time.
2. Only one person may speak at a time, and they must be recognized by the chair before speaking.
3. Board business is conducted in accordance with an agenda that is delivered to the board members before the meeting.
4. A quorum is always required to conduct business.
5. Every voting member is equal, but the board chair is responsible for managing the meeting.
6. With few exceptions, the majority rules, but minority viewpoints are always entitled to a hearing.

The business of a board or committee is advanced through the use of motions.

The most important and common motion is called the main motion.

A main motion introduces a new proposition for consideration by the board.

Main motions may only be made when no other motion is pending before the Assembly.

An example of a main motion might be I move that we recommend approval of zoning application number 2013-42.

Remember, only make motions that you agree with, because the motion maker may be called upon to advocate in favor of its passage.

The next step in the processing of a main motion is to have the motion seconded.

This is done when another board member simply says the word second aloud.

You don't have to agree with the motion to second it, but normally it suggests support for the motion.

If no one seconds the motion, the motion dies and the board moves on to other business or another board member may attempt a different motion.

After a motion is seconded, the chair then restates the motion aloud.

This gives the board, particularly the motion maker, the opportunity to make sure that everyone fully understands the substance of the motion.

This gives the board, particularly the motion maker, the opportunity to make sure that everyone fully understands the substance of the motion.

Once the chair restates the motion, the motion is now said to belong to the board and any proposed changes to the motion can only be made by a motion to amend a topic we'll review momentarily.

After a motion is restated by the chair, it is now time to debate on the motion.

If the motion is uncontroversial, there may be little or no debate.

Otherwise, the custom is that the motion maker is called upon first to advocate for his or her motion.

After that, other board members may seek the floor to debate for or against the motion.

The chair should give preference to members that have not already contributed to the debate.

Once the debate is over, the chair should restate the motion once again.

This ensures that board members and members of the public understand precisely what is being voted on at this time.

The Chair calls for a vote first by asking for those that support the motion to verbally indicate so, and then by asking those that oppose the motion to verbally indicate so.

Remember, if you don't verbalize support or opposition to a motion, you will be recorded as an affirmative vote.

Silence always equals consent in the parliamentary procedure right after the vote.

The chair then has the duty to verbally indicate whether a motion passed or failed.

Tie votes means that the motion fails to pass.

A motion can only pass if it receives support from a majority of those voting.

Florida law requires that a vote be recorded in the minutes for each member of a public board.

So if a vote is not unanimous one way or the other, make sure the recording secretary can identify which members voted for and which members voted against the motion.

This information has to be recorded in the minutes of the meeting.

The other important motion under Robert's Rules of Order is the motion to amend.

A motion to amend proposes to modify the proposal made by a main motion.

A motion to amend is only necessary once a main motion has been seconded and then restated by the board chair. Before that time, the motion maker can agree to modify his or her motion as long as someone again agrees to second the now modified main motion. But if a main motion has already been restated by the chair, only a motion to amend can modify it.

Using our previous example of a main motion, let's say that another board member wishes to amend the main motion proposing to recommend approval of zoning application number 2013-42.

A motion to amend might be I move an amendment to the main motion to add a condition that the rezoned property install enhanced landscaping in the site's proposed parking lot.

Just like a main motion, this motion requires a second.

If seconded, the chair restates the motion to amend and then gives time for debate amongst the members.

A vote is then taken and if approved, the main motion is now amended.

A motion to amend always takes precedence over a main motion.

This means that the board must dispose of the motion to amend first.

Then it goes on to handle the now amended main motion.

If no other motions to amend are raised, the chair would then move to complete debate on the main motion and then proceed to a vote on the amended main motion.

Almost all routine board business can be handled with the main motion and the motion to amend, though Roberts Rules of Order includes a variety of incidental and secondary motions for unique orders of business.

If you have questions about these specialized motions, please ask a member of city staff and they can help direct you to the right person to answer your question.

Also, remember that some city boards and committees have adopted their own special Rules of Order.

If so, the staff liaison to your board will give you a copy of those rules during your orientation.

In addition to the basic rules of procedure contained in Robert's Rules of Order, there are two other important procedural rules that city board members need to be aware of.

First, Orlando City Code prohibits the lobbying of citizen board members.

This means that lobbyists, applicants and other persons with business before your board should not contact you about board business outside of your official board meetings.

If you are approached about board business outside of an official meeting, simply decline to discuss the matter and refer the person to the City Clerk's office or the City Attorney's office for more information.

Lastly, some city boards and committees make government decisions that are characterized as quasi judicial decisions.

Quasi judicial decisions are government decisions that adjudicate rights to permits, orders or other government decisions based on the application of existing standards and rules or adjudicate the guilt or innocence of a person accused of violating a city ordinance.

Boards and committees conducting quasi judicial hearings have some important additional rules of Order.

Chief amongst these three rules is that citizens having their rights adjucated at a quasi judicial hearing have three basic 1 Prior notice of the hearing and the right to adequately prepare for the hearing 2 the opportunity to be heard at the hearing, including the right to have an attorney appear on their behalf and third, the right to an unbiased impartial decision maker.

This means that members of the city's quasi judicial boards and committees must come to the meeting without prejudging the matter, keep an open mind during the proceedings and then render their decision based upon the evidence presented during the hearing.

This training session covered just some of the most common and basic rules of board procedure.

Board procedures come from a variety of sources, including state statute, city code, and sometimes special rules adopted by a board or committee itself.

Most rules of procedure are provided by Robert's Rules of Order.

Robert's Rules may appear complicated, but most board business can be resolved with the main motion and the motion to amend.

Lobbyists and others with business before your board are prohibited from contacting you about board business outside an official board meeting.

Finally, always remember that city staff is here to help you.

Whenever you have a question about the rules of procedure, including the special rules required of quasi judicial hearings, please ask us.

Most city boards and committees will have a city attorney assigned to assist your board or committee with its work. If you do not or if you do not know your assigned city attorney, please ask your board secretary or other city staff, and they can easily get you in contact with us.

Download the City Gift Policy training audio file

This training will cover the city policies related to the receipt and reporting of gifts.

These requirements are in addition to any state requirements which apply to individuals who are required to file financial disclosure and which is covered in another training session.

It is the policy of the city to conduct the public's business ethically, openly and transparently.

The city's rules on gift acceptance and reporting ensure that everyone who appears before a city Board or is otherwise served by the city is treated fairly and are designed to prevent even the appearance of impropriety pursuant to city policy.

800.5 City employees, elected officials and those who serve on city boards should

1. Take any gift that would influence your judgment or ability to make a fair and impartial decision or create an impression that you are not Fair or impartial
2. Ask for any gift from anyone except relatives and friends who have no business in dealings with you in your city position and
3. Take any gift worth more than $100 from a person other than a relative or business if you as a city representative are currently doing business with that person or business or making decisions about their business, property or personal interests.

There is a City Gift reporting form that must be completed anytime a city employee, elected official or board member accepts any amount worth more than $25 

• A. The gift is for a holiday or birthday when it's clear that the gift has nothing to do with city business
• B. The gift is from your personal friend who has no business dealings with you in your city position
• C. The gift is a meal offered occasionally and in a professional or social context
• D. The gift is admission to events to which you are involved in your official capacity to represent the City of Orlando and
• E. the gift is made to the city and the city will keep it.

If the gift is perishable, such as food or flowers, then it should be for the enjoyment of everyone in a public or common room.

If you have any questions about the city's gift policy, please feel free to call the city attorney's office at 407.246.2295 and we will be happy to help you get your questions answered.

Download the Dual Office Holding training audio file

This training session will cover the topic of dual office holding.

Dual office holding is when a person holds more than one office under the government of the State of Florida or one of the counties or municipalities of Florida.

With a few exceptions, the Florida Constitution prohibits dual office holding.

The purpose behind this rule is to prevent conflicts of interest between the sometimes competing duties of government offices and to prevent the over concentration of government authority in the hands of a few memberships on some boards and committees of the City of Orlando constitute an office for purposes of the dual office holding prohibition.

This is why the city's application form for nomination to a board or committee asks you whether or not you hold any other state or local government position.

If the board or committee on which you serve is considered one of these offices, you should not accept an appointment to another state, county or municipal office without first resigning from your existing board or committee.

The City Clerk's office maintains a list of all the city boards or committees that constitute an office for purposes of the constitutional prohibition.

If you would like to know whether your board or committee is such an office, just ask us.

The purpose of this training session is to make you aware of this rule and to help you avoid inadvertently accepting a nomination to a second state or local office because the consequences of accepting a second office is the automatic vacation of the first office.

The City of Orlando can be confronted with an abrupt vacancy in one of our boards or committees if you accept a second state office without first informing the city and then tendering your resignation in time for the city to fill your former office.

Even worse, if you accept a second state or local government office and mistakenly continue to act as if you hold the city office, you may place at risk the decisions and acts of the city board or committee on which you are serving.

For these reasons, it's important that you understand the basic dual office holding rule and ask the City Clerk's office or the City Attorney's office if you have any questions about the rule.

The dual office holding rule comes from Article 2, Section 5 of the Florida Constitution, which provides in part that no person shall hold at the same time more than one office under the government of the state and the counties and municipalities therein.

The Florida Constitution provides only the following six:

1. A notary public
2. A military officer
3. A member of the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission
4. A member of the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission
5. A member of the Constitutional Convention and
6. A member of the statutory body having only advisory powers.

Unless you hold one of these offices, you may generally hold only one government office in Florida, it is not necessary for the two offices to be within the same governmental agency for the rule to apply.

The rule applies to elected office, but also to appointed office, like many of the boards and committees of the City of Orlando.

In some rare cases it may even apply to certain classes of government employees, such as a police chief or a city manager.

The tricky thing about this rule is that the Florida Constitution does not define an office for purposes of the dual office holding prohibition.

Instead, we have to refer to an assortment of court opinions and advisory opinions from the Florida Attorney General in order to ascertain whether a particular board or committee constitutes an office.

The general rule, however, is that an office must involve the delegation of some portion of the state's or local government's sovereign power in order to constitute an office under the dual office holding rule.

In other words, usually an office involves membership on a board or committee that has some final decision making authority on behalf of the government.

This will include membership on a city or county commission, a city or county code enforcement board, and planning and zoning boards that make final decisions for the local government.

Usually it will not include boards or committees that have only advisory powers, such as the Public Art Advisory Board.

But remember, this rule has many exceptions.

The cases interpreting the rule are complex, numerous and very fact specific, and the ultimate answer often depends on a careful analysis of state statutes or law, local ordinances.

Sometimes boards or committees under different local governments, but with similar names and apparent duties, actually have technically distinct legal powers and thus one may be in office and the other not.

This is why we ask that you consult with the City Clerk's office or the City Attorney's office whenever you have a question about whether to accept another government position of any kind.

Most city boards and committees will have a city attorney assigned to assist your board or committee with its work.

If you do not, or if you do not know your assigned city attorney, please ask your board secretary or other city staff and they can easily get you in contact with us.

Download the Financial Disclosure training audio file

The City of Orlando is committed to compliance with the requirements of the Florida Records Law and dedicated to conducting its operations in a transparent and accessible fashion.

Whether you are an elected official, an employee, or a city board or committee member, it is important that you understand and follow the provisions of the Public Records Law.

The starting point is, of course, knowing what is covered by this law.

In Florida, public records are defined to mean all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings, data processing software or other material, regardless of the physical form, characteristics or means of transmission made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency.

In short, any record made or received in the course of doing business as a city official, in employee, board or committee member is subject to this law.

The key here is what the record concerns, not where it is located or how it is recorded.

If it concerns city business, whether it is on a personal telephone, computer, or anywhere else, it is a public record.

Conversely, of course, personal information unrelated to city business remains personal even if it is recorded on a city computer, telephone or other equipment.

Florida law further provides that every person who has custody of a public record shall permit the record to be inspected and examined by any person desiring to do so at any reasonable time.

Here are a few basic concepts that I hope will help you comply with your responsibilities under this law.

All records concerning city business are covered, regardless of the form in which they are maintained, computer, paper, email, audio or videotape and must be produced in the form they are maintained or upon request in another format if that is relatively easily accomplished.

Documents become public at the point they communicate, perpetuate or formalize information.

There is no general exemption for draft documents or notes.

However, if a document is created solely in order to assist the Creator in completing a final document and is therefore not intended to perpetuate information, and if a final document is completed, and if the draft document has not been shared with anyone else, not used to communicate, then it would not constitute a public record.

So, for example, if you jot down some notes to yourself to remind you of a point you want to address on a meeting agenda, those notes are not public unless they are shared or you intend for them to formalize your comments.

• As you may know, there are hundreds of legislatively created exemptions from mandatory public record disclosure for, for example, active criminal investigative records, medical records, Social Security numbers, juvenile records, and certain crime victim information. The vast majority of information made or received by a public agency is, however, open to the public.
• To ensure that exempt or confidential information isn't inadvertently disclosed and to keep a record of timely production of records, most public record requests are referred to the City Clerk's Records Management Office. This office can always assist you with compliance.
• Only documents that exist at the time the request is made or that can be easily produced by a quick computer sort need to be produced under the Public Records Act. Otherwise, documents do not need to be created, nor do questions or requests for information as opposed to documents need to be answered.
• No fees can be charged for the inspection of records unless the request requires the government to use extensive information technology resources or clerical assistance to retrieve the information or make it available. If extensive technology or clerical assistance is required, defined by city policy as more than 30 minutes, then a charge can be made for the reasonable cost of that service. Charges for copies are set by law at $0.15 per one sided copy, $0.20 for two sided copies, and actual cost for the other sizes and types of copies.
• Public records may be destroyed and only in accordance with the retention schedules published by the Department of State, and each destruction must be be properly documented by the agency.

The City Clerk's Records Archives Section handles these responsibilities for the city.

If this sounds confusing, you're right, it certainly can be.

To keep it simple, do not destroy any record you create or receive that relates to your city job, board or committee service.

City staff is always willing to keep these records for you during or at the conclusion of your service.

The City Attorney's Office is also willing to answer any question you may have on these requirements because there are serious penalties, including fines or even incarceration, that can be imposed for the violation of the Public Records Law.

Please make sure you are clear on these requirements and do not hesitate to call us at 407.246.2295 anytime you have a question.

Download the State Gift Law training audio file

This training will cover the state gift requirements as they relate to individuals who are required to file financial disclosure.

There are also city requirements on the receipt and reporting of some gifts that will be covered in a separate training segment.

The most important concepts involved in state law compliance are recognizing what gifts are prohibited and then understanding how gifts must be valued.

The three basic tenets of the state law:

1. No person can solicit or accept anything of value in return for an Official Action
2. No one may accept a gift valued in excess of $100 from a lobbyist, which basically means anyone who has an interest in a matter that may come before your board for resolution or recommendation, or anyone who represents someone with such an interest and
3. Any gift valued in excess of $100 from someone who is not a lobbyist and not a relative must be reported to the state or on a quarterly basis on forms available from the Commission on Ethics website.

In order to comply with these rules, it is important to understand the rules on gift valuation.

Some of these are pretty specific and perhaps different from what you might otherwise think.

For example, transportation provided to a reporting individual is valued at the cost of comparable commercial conveyance, which means that trips in a private airplane are valued at the commercial airfare available and at the same general time booked at the same time the private transportation is offered and accepted.

Lodging in a private residence or property is valued based on state per diem rates in 2013, the daily value of lodging provided free of charge is $44 per night.

The value of a meal consumed in a single seating is the price paid for the meal by the donor.

If there is not a per person cost, the value is determined by dividing the total cost of the event by the number of persons invited.

Even when admission to the event cannot be purchased by the public, the ticket has a value which is determined by dividing the total cost of the event by the number of persons invited.

Tickets to charitable meals or events are valued at the face value of the ticket, including the part that constitutes a charitable donation, unless the ticket is given to you directly by the charity.

In that case, the donation portion of the ticket price can be subtracted when valuing the ticket.

So if, for example, you are given two tickets to the American Cancer Society dinner with a face value of $100 each each, the value of the gift is $200 unless the tickets are given to you from the Cancer Society itself, in which case the value is the Cancer Society's cost per head of the meal.

The same rule would apply to tickets to a golf tournament or other event.

If you receive tickets, transportation, lodging, meals, etc.

From your employer unrelated to your city board service, then that benefit is not considered a gift for the purpose of these rules.

Finally, you can subtract from the value of a gift any consideration you have paid for that gift.

So, for example, if you stay in a private residence for three nights, a value of $132, and you give the donor a check or other compensation for at least $32, then the value of the gift would not be enough to trigger the valued in excess of $100 prohibition on receipt from a lobbyist or the mandatory reporting requirement to affect the valuation of the gift, any consideration must be given within 90 days of receipt of the gift.

The Florida Commission on Ethics enforces these rules.

Their staff is available to assist any public official or board member who is affected by these rules, and the City Attorney's office is also available to answer any questions you may have.

Please do not hesitate to get assistance if you have any questions about whether something constitutes a prohibited gift or a gift that must be reported on quarterly disclosure forms.

Download the Sunshine Law training audio file

Florida's government and the Sunshine Laws help our citizens understand and have confidence in their state and local governments.

The goal of Florida's Open Meetings Law is to make the governmental decision making process accessible and transparent to its citizens.

Florida deems open meetings important enough that it is required by both the Florida Constitution and the Florida Statutes.

Article 1, Section 24 of the Florida Constitution states that all meetings of a public body at which official acts are to be taken or at which public business is to be transacted or discussed shall be open to the public.

Similarly, Section 286.011 of the Florida Statutes outlines the three basic requirements for a public meeting

1. Meetings must be open to the public
2. Reasonable notice must be given in advance of the meeting
3. Minutes of Sunshine meetings must be kept and be open to public inspection.

So what is a meeting?

For these purposes, a meeting is where two or more members of the same board or committee discuss matters that will foreseeably come before the body for action.

So any time that more than one member of a board gets together to discuss board business, all the requirements of the Sunshine Law must be met.

In this time of ever evolving technology, it is especially important to recognize that board members cannot do indirectly what they can't do directly.

In other words, when board members cannot have telephone, instant message text or email communications or discussions with other board members about matters that may come before their board.

Likewise, board members should not exchange letters or memoranda about board business.

Remember, the goal of the law is to allow members of the public to be present for any decision making related discussions which they cannot do during a private exchange.

In addition to the state requirements, the City of Orlando has adopted Sunshine Meeting policies that hold our City Council and boards to additional standards designed to ensure that Orlando citizens have full access to information about their government.

Under the state law, a meeting being open to the public means that any interested person can attend and that the meeting is held in an accessible location, including access that can accommodate the needs of persons with disabilities.

City policy number 121.1 additionally requires that all City of Orlando Council and board meetings be held in publicly owned land, leased or operated facilities.

The city adopted this rule to ensure that meetings are held in places that members of the public will feel comfortable attending.

The advance notice and meeting minute requirements are generally items that the city staff assigned to assist with your board operations will take care of.

City staff is generally never voting members of city boards so you can communicate freely with them without violating the Sunshine Law.

As long as you do not include other board members on communications which occur outside a posted meeting.

However, when communicating your needs to staff, it is important to be aware that our city policy requires that all Sunshine meetings be posted at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting on our city website and on bulletin boards established for that purpose in Orlando City Hall.

The city policy also requires that written minutes be prepared within five business days of the date of a Sunshine meeting.

Although it is permissible to make audio or video recordings of your meetings, doing so does not change the requirement that written minutes have to be prepared within five days.

Again, normally each city board will have a recording secretary assigned to it to post its meetings and to record the minutes.

But if your board chooses to have subcommittees, all of these requirements will also be applicable to the subcommittee.

So please ensure that arrangements have been made for the advance notice, posting, accessible location and minutes requirements to be timely met for those meetings as well.

As a City of Orlando Board member, you are a representative of the city and will be viewed that way by anyone attending one of your board meetings.

Please avoid unintentional behavior that may appear to be a violation of the Sunshine Law to those in the audience.

For example, board members whispering to each other or jotting notes to each other during a board meeting may appear to be engaging in a private discussion about board business.

Even if you are discussing the weather or other matters which would not be matters that would foreseeably come before your board, the such private conversations may appear to be improper.

In order to uphold the city's high standards of transparency, please avoid any such appearance of impropriety.

In 2013, the Florida legislature amended the Open Meetings Law to require that members of the public be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on a proposition before a board.

So prior to a board taking action on a matter, it must give the opportunity for the public to comment on it either at the meeting where the decision will be made or a meeting within reasonable proximity in time before the meeting at which the board will take official action.

There are very limited exceptions to this law, and boards may still adopt rules of decorum to allow the comments to be taken in an orderly manner.

The Orlando City Council's rules with respect to the conduct of its meetings are found in City Policy and Procedure 121.5.

Violations of the Open Meetings Law carry both criminal and civil penalties.

Further actions taken in violation of the Sunshine Law are void and must be cured by independent final action taken in the Sunshine Law.

If you have any questions about the requirements of the Sunshine Law, please contact the assistant city attorney assigned to your board at 407.246.2295.

Download the Voting Conflicts Training audio file

This training session will cover voting conflicts of interest. As a member of a City of Orlando board or committee, you will be asked to cast votes on matters that come before your board or committee.

The basic principle that you need to understand is that you must never vote on any matter that would benefit you personally.

This makes sense, of course, and seems simple at first blush, but there are some important details and nuances that you also need to know.

The first important rule that you need to remember is that Florida law actually requires you to vote on every matter that comes before your board or committee for a decision unless there is or appears to be a possible conflict of interest.

In other words, you may not abstain from a vote for any reason unless you are required to abstain because of the conflict of interest rules, which we will discuss momentarily.

For each measure that comes before your board for a decision, the recording secretary is obligated to record a vote from you.

And remember, under the rules of Parliamentary procedure, if you do not voice an audible yes or no vote, your silence is automatically considered an affirmative vote.

Now, by virtue of being appointed to a City of Orlando board or committee, even if your body's powers are only advisory in nature, you become a public officer for purposes of the voting conflicts portion of the State Ethics Code.

As a municipal public official, you are prohibited from voting in an official capacity upon any measure which would inure to you your private gain or loss.

In addition to matters that would benefit you personally, you are also prohibited from voting on matters that you know would inure to the private gain or loss of one of the any principal by whom you are retained or to the parent organization of a principal by whom you are retained or a subsidiary of a corporate principal by whom you are retained or a relative or a business associate.

A relative means your father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, father in law, mother in law, son in law, or daughter in law.

A business associate is any person or entity engaged in or carrying on a business enterprise with you as a partner, joint venturer, corporate shareholder, where the shares are not traded on a stock exchange or co owner of a property.

To review, there are six categories of persons or entities that you need to be concerned with here.

You must not vote on matters that inure to the gain or loss of you a relative as we just defined a business associate as we just defined a principal by whom you are retained, apparent organization of a principal by whom you are retained, and finally a subsidiary of a corporate principal by whom you are retained.

Once you have determined that you or one of these individuals or entities would be substantially helped or harmed by the outcome of the vote.

You then have three important duties.

One, before the vote is taken, you must publicly disclose to the assembly the nature of your conflict.

This is a simple statement from you made aloud to the assembly and the public, identifying which of the six categories of persons or entities we just discussed that the vote would help harm.

So, for example, let's assume that you are a practicing architect and that your board is considering whether to approve or deny a development plan for a piece of property that is owned by one of your clients.

Just before the vote is taken on the measure, you need to request the floor from the chairperson and say something more or less as Mr.

Chair, the property at issue in this matter is owned by Ms. Laura Rodriguez.

Ms. Rodriguez is a client of mine and therefore I must abstain from voting on this question.

Next, after disclosing the nature of your conflict, when the vote is called, you must not vote.

This is the one situation in which being silent during a vote will not result in your silence being recorded as an affirmative vote.

Number three.

And finally, within 15 days of the vote occurring, you must file with your board recording secretary a memorandum describing the conflict.

The Florida Commission on Ethics provides a form memorandum referred to as the Commission on Ethics Form 8B.

Many city board secretaries make a habit of bringing blank Form 8B's to their board meetings, but if they do not, you can always Download a Form 8B from the Commission on Ethics website or just ask city staff to help you locate one while you have 15 days from when the vote occurs to file the form.

Because the form is so short and easy to fill out, we always recommend simply completing the form and leaving it with your board secretary right after your meeting.

Once filed with your board secretary, the memorandum is attached to your board's meeting minutes.

So let's review the three steps you must take when you are confronted with a conflict of interest.

First, publicly declare the nature of the conflict before the vote is taken.

Second, abstain from voting.

And third, and finally, file form 8B with your board secretary within 15 days of the vote or ideally, right after your meeting.

Now, before we conclude this training session, let me offer a few thoughts that may help you navigate the rules relating to voting conflicts of interest.

Most city boards and committees will publish an agenda for upcoming meetings.

Normally, that agenda, along with supporting materials such as staff reports and application materials, will be sent to you several days before the meeting.

You should take this opportunity before the meeting is held to review the material to determine whether applicants or other persons directly affected by the upcoming agenda are a relative, business associate or other person or firm that we just defined.

Two, while the rules on voting conflicts of interest might seem a little more complicated than you first imagined, always remember the very first and very simple rule of the City of Orlando ethics policy.

Avoid doing anything personally or professionally that might seem or appear to be improper or unethical.

Using this rule as a guidepost will help you through most ethical questions.

Which ties into the third point where there is uncertainty about whether you should abstain from voting.

Specifically, where it might be unclear whether or not a person or business affected by your board's decision falls into one of the six categories of persons or businesses for which you must abstain from voting.

Always remember that you must vote on every matter that comes before you unless there is or appears to be a conflict of interest.

The or appears to be language is an invitation to err on the side of caution and where there is legitimate uncertainty, to abstain from the vote.

Finally, always remember that city staff is here to help you.

Whenever you have a question about a possible conflict of interest, please ask us.

Most city boards and committees will have a city attorney assigned to assist your board or committee with its work.

If you do not or if you do not know your assigned city attorney, please please ask your board secretary or other city staff and they can easily get you in contact with us.