ETHICS COMMISSION HOLDS FIRST MEETING

Members of Cape Girardeau's new Ethics Commission left the first meeting with homework Thursday night.

City attorney Eric Cunningham urged the seven commissioners to study the city charter clause and ordinance that created the commission, a proposed set of bylaws and the state's open meetings law.

Cunningham and the commissioners -- Dennis Dobson, John N. Egbuka, Ken Green, Bill Killian, Bo Shantz, Mark Slinkard, and Stephen Stigers -- spent about 90 minutes reviewing the commission's duties and powers.

The Ethics Commission was created through a charter amendment approved last year by city voters.

The commission would investigate alleged ethical violations by the mayor, members of the City Council, the municipal judge, city manager, chief purchasing officer and members of any city advisory board or commission, such as the Planning and Zoning Commission, Cunningham said.

Complaints may be made by members of the public, or the commissioners themselves may -- with a vote of at least three members -- initiate their own investigations.

The results of those investigations, along with recommendations for action, are to be forwarded to the City Council, which has the final power to act on the investigations, Cunningham said.

Thursday night's meeting wasn't too exciting, as the commissioners themselves noted.

"This thing reads like an insurance contract: boring," Shantz, an insurance agent, said of the commission's information packet.