Dallas City Council Member Paul Ridley is questioning proposed reforms to the City ethics code that would lower the burden of proof for complaints of ethical violations against City officials and remove a standard for “clear and convincing evidence.”
Ridley voiced his objections during a council briefing on Wednesday. Shortly after his taking office in 2021, an ethics complaint filed against Ridley was dismissed for failing to meet the existing standard.
The clear and convincing standard currently used in the Office of Inspector General’s evidentiary hearings requires evidence to provide a firm belief or conviction that the claim is true.
The OIG now proposes changing that standard to a “preponderance of the evidence” that shows the claim is more likely true than not.
“We have two choices here: do we stay on the ‘clear and convincing’ road that we’re on? Or do we change to what everybody else in the United States is doing: preponderance of the evidence?” asked Inspector General Bart Bevers on Wednesday.
“If we stay on this path — clear and convincing — it’s going to mean less substantiated cases and I think that translates into an incentive to violate [the ethics code],” he continued.
Bevers said that Dallas “doesn’t have a clean slate,” noting that five City Council members over the past 16 years have been convicted of felonies. Indeed, polling conducted by The Dallas Express has shown that Dallas residents want more transparency from the City and suggested a lack of trust in the local government.
Bevers added that “preponderance of the evidence” is the common standard for inspector general offices across the nation, as well as other administrative hearings throughout Dallas.
“Why does Dallas feel the need to … be the only City in the country to cling to this high burden of proof when nobody else is doing it?” he asked. “It bothers me.”
Council Member Ridley, who represents District 14, argued the City should maintain its “higher standard of evidence” because the careers and reputations of the accused are at stake.
In 2021, Ridley was accused by Kristin Scholer — a City redistricting commissioner appointed by former District 14 Council Member David Blewett — of falsely claiming that he tried to make contact with her on several occasions to request she resign from the commission.
If her accusation were true, Ridley would have violated a City code that requires officials to “operate with integrity … treat others with respect … [and] carefully consider the public perception” of their actions.
However, the Ethics Advisory Commission voted 3-2 in November 2021 to dismiss the complaint against Ridley, citing a lack of enough “clear and convincing” evidence to show he violated City rules.
“I just don’t believe that there has been clear and convincing evidence that a council member made an intentional lie or statement with the intent to deceive,” said commission member Thomas Perkins, who voted to dismiss the complaint, per The Dallas Morning News.
During Wednesday’s council briefing, Ridley asked the inspector general which cases would have “gone the other way” if the preponderance of evidence was used as the standard.
Bevers could not answer this question directly but did say that since his office was instituted last year, there have been roughly a dozen cases “that we probably would have filed if we’d had a lower burden of proof.”
Interim City Attorney Tammy Palomino added that there is currently a “very difficult burden on the person bringing the case.”
“All of our administrative hearings require a preponderance of the evidence. Even our trial boards are preponderance of the evidence,” she added. “It’s… not this high burden of proof.”
The Dallas City Council will vote on whether to adopt these changes to the Code of Ethics during its next meeting on Wednesday.