JoCo official may have violated ethics code, report says. City council disregards it
An outside investigator found that Olathe City Councilwoman Karin Brownlee may have violated the city’s code of ethics when she spoke to the employer of a gay rights activist about his conduct.
After reviewing the investigation, a retired judge decided there was no violation. But when the matter came up for discussion at Tuesday night’s meeting, the City Council sat silent and took no action.
Advocate Brett Hoedl, who led the push for the city to adopt a nondiscrimination ordinance protecting the LGBT community, filed an ethics complaint against Brownlee in November. He accused the councilwoman, who is a former state senator, of complaining to his employer about his activism.
He argued Brownlee used her position in an attempt to silence residents with opinions that differ from her own. Brownlee has contended that she simply engaged in a casual conversation.
The City Council selected an outside party to investigate whether Brownlee violated the code of ethics, and then asked a retired judge to issue an opinion.
The investigator, Angela Gupta, who works for a Topeka mediation firm, found that Brownlee might have violated her ethical duties that require her to “avoid the appearance of improper influence,” “maintain public confidence” in her job duties and be “dedicated to the ideals of honor and integrity.”
“In essence, Brownlee conveyed a message that Hoedl’s conduct could negatively affect the company’s image or reputation,” Gupta wrote in the 14-page report.
The investigator added that Brownlee’s actions could “reasonably and foreseeably result in intimidating or discouraging Hoedl or other members of the public from speaking out at council meetings, for fear that she might report their behavior to their employers.”
Gupta deferred any judgment on the investigation to retired Johnson County District Court judge Gerald Elliott, who argued there were no substantial facts to justify a conclusion that Brownlee had violated the code.
The city’s code of ethics is vague, Gupta pointed out, and there is little precedent to guide enforcement. But Hoedl said he was at least expecting the City Council to discuss it Tuesday night.
Despite funding the outside investigation, the City Council could leave the findings essentially untouched. Under the code, no further action is required.
The city spent nearly $13,000 on the investigation, said spokesman Tim Danneberg.
“If the City Council does nothing on this, or doesn’t make a statement on this, I think it sends a clear message. It sends the message that a city councilor or anybody within the city is free to retaliate against a citizen if they don’t like what they are saying to the City Council,” Hoedl said.
In a message to The Star, Brownlee Wednesday afternoon said “Hoedl’s alleged ethics complaint has been investigated; it is done. The Judge’s report recommended that ‘Brownlee’s comments were not a violation of the Olathe code of ethics.’”
“Moving forward, the attention of Olathe city officials is needed to focus on the safety of our citizens in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.”
Ethics complaint
The dispute between Brownlee and Hoedl took place at the height of the debate over whether Olathe should adopt a nondiscrimination ordinance.
Olathe was the last of Johnson County’s major cities to adopt such an ordinance, which protects the LGBT community from being denied housing, employment or services from businesses. Hoedl, who served as the chairman of Equality Kansas Metro Kansas City chapter, led the push for the ordinance.
When it came to a vote in December, the statute passed, but Brownlee was one of three council members to vote against it.
The LGBT community has criticized Brownlee’s record as a state senator, when she voted for legislation in 2005 to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions. Brownlee was later Kansas secretary of labor during Gov. Sam Brownback’s first term but stepped down after two years. She was elected to the Olathe City Council in 2017.
The ethics complaint hinges on events at one City Council meeting where Hoedl spoke in favor of the nondiscrimination ordinance.
But in the investigator’s report, Gupta found that there were two different accounts of the story.
Brownlee previously told The Star she had an issue with Hoedl’s conduct at a City Council meeting last summer. At the meeting, he shared a story about a co-worker, in which he began to state the name of his employer, Black & Veatch. But he quickly stopped himself, saying it was an accidental slip.
Hoedl emphasized that he has tried to keep his advocacy separate from his work. Later in the meeting, LGBT activists grew frustrated as the City Council refused to vote on the ordinance. Hoedl and others loudly stormed out of the room.
At a November fundraiser event, Brownlee brought up the instance with a representative of Black & Veatch.
Brownlee told the investigator that she simply mentioned that Hoedl used the company’s name while advocating for a nondiscrimination ordinance at a meeting. In the report, she denied mentioning Hoedl’s behavior to the company.
The Black & Veatch representative, however, told the investigator that Brownlee went further than that. The employer said Brownlee shared information about how Hoedl used the company name, acted inappropriately and was a poor representation of the company.
The investigator determined that the company’s account of events was most logical and had the most fact-based support. Gupta stated that while the code of ethics is vague, Brownlee’s actions could be seen as a violation.
“The facts indicate that Brownlee spoke to … a company over which she had a say in its business contracts with the city, about the advocacy efforts of an employee whose viewpoint she openly disagrees with, and indicated that the employee’s behavior reflected poorly on Black & Veatch,” Gupta wrote. “Given her position of power over Black & Veatch’s contracts with the city, one could view the conversation as an attempt by Brownlee … to (rein) in Hoedl’s advocacy efforts.”
When the City Council discussed the ethics complaint in December, Mayor Michael Copeland said that a full investigation was necessary. As part of the investigation, he asked a retired judge to issue an opinion to help guide the council’s actions.
Retired judge Elliott, in his opinion, argued that Brownlee’s comments on Hoedl’s actions did not “constitute complaining about Hoedl’s advocacy effort before the City Council.” He recommended the council decide that Brownlee’s comments were not a violation of the code of ethics.
But the City Council did not discuss or accept any of the findings.
“They let it linger for months, and then they didn’t even discuss it,” Hoedl said. “That means that anybody, whether you’re talking about a zoning issue, something happening in their neighborhood, or civil rights, you’re at risk of retaliation if the council doesn’t agree with you.”
Hoedl also said he is frustrated that he did not get an opportunity to speak publicly at Tuesday’s meeting, because council meetings are now being held remotely during the coronavirus pandemic. He worries the issue will be “swept under the rug.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 3:27 PM.
