The Langley Ethics Board held its first meeting with a full group of five members this week and immediately set to the task of defining the city’s soul.

One of the major objectives for the recently-formed citizen board was to create core values for Langley. In its second meeting since forming officially in early August, board Chairman Bob Frause, a retired public relations executive who spent decades on a national industry ethics board, described the project as extracting the essence and base elements of the city’s ethics code.

The good news was that everything they needed was printed and in their hands.

“A lot of this work’s already been done,” he said while flipping through a printed copy of the code.

The core values statement is like a news story’s headline, Frause said. It needs to be succinct, true and alluring. It should also cover the big ideas and get to the heart of what the city’s ethics board was designed to do and is. Words like advocacy, transparency, fairness, autonomy, integrity, diversity and public service were narrowed down from a list of about 20 terms by the five members.

Seeing the long list drew concern from member Fred Herzon.

“It’s a little bit too encyclopedic,” he said.

Frause had them cast votes for their favorite seven words. That produced a semifinal list the group will revisit at its next meeting, Monday, Oct. 26.

Long sought after by the city council, the ethics board first officially formed in early August with three members. The city council amended the ethics code, which initially called for five members plus one alternate, so the board would form with a minimum of three while still looking to fill the other positions. Its newest addition, Marilee Seligson, created a five-member board while City Hall seeks a sixth to round out the group.

Seligson’s husband, Hal Seligson, served as a city councilman who championed the need for Langley to have an ethics code and an ethics board. After he declined to run for re-election in 2014, the issue fell by the wayside until a few people took up the cause and pressed the city to better notify the public of the vacancies.

During the meeting at City Hall’s council chambers, the ethics board made the unusual decision to sit in a circle, apparently without any discussion of the aesthetic or reason. They just did it, bucking the formal tradition of citizen boards sitting in a row at the live edge wood tables, facing a row of seats.

Considering no one else attended the meeting, it was an easier choice to make because none of their backs would be turned to anyone. But, it also focused them inward to one another, a more egalitarian view of decision making akin to King Arthur’s fabled Round Table, one with no head or designated position of authority or power.

Through the remaining months of 2015, the ethics board will meet the second and fourth Monday at 5 p.m. Ahead of the board is work on consolidating and revising the ethics code to remove anything that is more operational than it is ethical, then present those changes as an official recommendation for the city council to approve.

Frause said the city currently has four documents that dictate or outline behavior. There is a personnel policy manual, an annual staff development plan, operating principles and the ethics code. Making at least one of those, the ethics code, as simple to understand as possible was a paramount task for the ethics board.

During the hour-long meeting, the board agreed to follow the city’s policy for remote attendance. The city council allows its members to attend via phone or visual teleconference through Skype or other programs. Allowing such attendance was particularly necessary for Herzon, who had planned to spend several months in New Mexico before applying to the ethics board and being appointed. His prearranged and prolonged absence was discussed during the interview process with the mayor and staff and was deemed not an impediment to his ability to serve on the board.