5. What happens after you receive a complaint petition?

First, we ensure that the respondent was an officer or employee at the time the alleged ethics violation occurred.

Second, we determine whether the alleged violation falls within our scope of authority. The Code of Ethics ordinance lists a number of ethical violations. We encourage anyone considering filing a complaint petition to look for the violation in the Code of Ethics.

If both of the above two conditions are not met, the complaint ends with a finding of no probable cause.

If both of the above two conditions are met, we investigate to determine if probable cause exists. For us, probable cause simply means that there is sufficient evidence to consider that an ethics violation may have occurred.