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TOWN OF LOS GATOS
COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
MEETING DATE: 09/15/2026
ITEM NO: 9
ADDENDUM
DATE: September 15, 2026
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: Chris Constantin, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Adopt a Resolution Rescinding Resolution 2024-046 and Amending the Appendices to the Town Conflict of Interest Code Section 2.30.610 REMARKS:
Attachment 3 contains public comment received before 3:01 p.m. on Friday, September 11, 2026.
Attachments Received with the Staff Report:
1. Redline Designated Positions
2. Draft Resolution with Exhibits A and B
Attachments Received with this Addendum:
3. Public Comment Received Before 3:01 p.m., Friday, September 11, 2026.
PUBLIC COMMENT — ITEM 9
TO: Mayor and Members of the Town Council
FROM: Phil Koen
DATE: September 11, 2026
RE: Item 9, September 15, 2026 — Biennial Review of the Conflict of Interest Code I write in my individual capacity; I serve on the Finance Commission but do not speak for it. I support adoption of the resolution. I ask the Council to take one further step, which it may do under Government Code section 54954.2(a): direct staff to place on a future agenda an amendment to Policy 2-04 requiring disclosure of relationships.
What the biennial review cannot reach
The Conflict of Interest Code decides who files a Form 700 and what they report. Every disclosure category in Appendix B is economic: investments, business positions, income, and real property.
The review, however complete, cannot see the relationships that most often bear on a grant decision. An unpaid seat on a nonprofit's board does not appear, because a nonprofit is generally not a business entity (Gov. Code § 82005) and an unpaid director receives no income from it.
Family reach stops at a spouse and dependent children (§ 82029). Personal and professional relationships, which carry no money, are not reached at all.
Until August 2025, Policy 2-04 § VIII.E restricted Council Members from serving on the boards of Town-funded nonprofits without full Council approval. It was removed in the August 19, 2025 revision, and nothing replaced it. The Commission code adopted the same night, Policy 2-19 § IV.E, still bars commissioners who sit on such boards from the Community Grant selection process.
Those who score grant applications are held to a rule; those who vote on the appropriation are subject to no Town rule on the point.
What San Francisco requires
San Francisco addresses this outside its Form 700 code, in Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code § 3.214 and Ethics Commission Regulations 3.214-1 through 3.214-6. Before making a decision, including a vote to award grant funds, an official must disclose in the minutes or in a memorandum on file any personal, professional, or business relationship with a person who holds a financial interest in, or a director or officer position with, the applicant or other party that is the subject of the decision. Nonprofits are included, and compensation is irrelevant. Only relationships arising from the official's private life count. It is a disclosure rule, not a disqualification rule.
The Council may adopt standards above the state minimum (Gov. Code § 81013). Policy 2-04's own preamble says it holds Council Members to “standards of conduct above and beyond what is required by law.”
Request
I ask the Council to direct staff to return with a proposed amendment to Policy 2-04, with a conforming change to Policy 2-19, requiring disclosure on the record, before the decision, of personal, professional, and business relationships with those who have an interest in the matter, drawing on the San Francisco model. I made the same request in my August 14, 2026 memorandum to the Town Manager and Town Attorney on the conflict of interest clause in the Community Grant Agreement. That clause binds the grantee. Only Town policy can bind Town officials, and a grantee cannot disclose relationships it does not know about.
I am not proposing language; drafting is properly the Town Attorney's. The request concerns the standard going forward, not any past decision or individual.
Attachment 3