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A Palm Springs city council member is working to form a committee that will set up ethical and open-government standards for the city.
The Ethics, Transparency and Government Reform Task Force will be a temporary panel that will set up ethical guidelines for Palms Springs governmental officials that will be more stringent than state ethical guidelines, Councilman Geoff Kors said.
The committee, which will probably have five members, will make a report to the city council on how to increase transparency, avoid conflicts of interest and increase diversity on all of Palm Springs’ boards and commissions.
Whatever the group recommends will be based on ideas it gets from other cities, Kors said.
“It’s not unusual for cities to have ethical guidelines that are stronger than the state’s,” said Kors, who was elected in November to his first council term. “What we want to do is take what other cities are doing, mostly in California but we’re going to look all over the country.”
Between 35 and 40 applications have been received so far. People with a legal or government background are preferred.
“There’s tremendous support for this idea,” Kors said. “I don’t know of anyone in the city who doesn’t support it.”
The panel is expected to be in place sometime in March and complete its work in about six months, Kors said.
Anyone interested in applying should send a resume and cover letter to Kors at [email protected]. Applications are being accepted through Jan. 28.
