Press Release  State Ethics Commission Issues Public Education Letter to Brockton City Councilor David Teixeira

Boston — The State Ethics Commission issued a Public Education Letter today to Brockton City Councilor David Teixeira after finding reasonable cause to believe that he violated the conflict of interest law by debating and voting to enact a city ordinance banning camping on public property including a popular site next to two businesses he owned.

Teixeira, first elected to the Brockton City Council in 2021, has owned a commercial property on Montello Street, Brockton since 2007. Two of his businesses, Mattress Maker of New England and American Dream Homecare Agency, are located at the property, which directly abuts the School Street bridge, reportedly one of three primary downtown Brockton locations where groups of unhoused people gathered and camped from 2023-2025. 

In 2024, with Teixeira participating in the debate and voting in favor of passage, the City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting camping in or on any public property, or under any bridge or viaduct, which the mayor vetoed. In 2025, Teixeira voted with the majority when the City Council overrode the mayor’s veto of the ordinance. 

The Public Education Letter explains that the conflict of interest law generally prohibits municipal employees from participating officially in matters in which they know they or their businesses have a financial interest and that, as the owner of real estate and businesses located next to the School Street bridge, Teixeira had a financial interest in the passage of the citywide anti-camping ordinance. The letter states, “As you had previously publicly maintained that the presence of many unhoused persons in the School Street bridge area directly negatively affected area businesses, including your own to such an extent that you were ‘really thinking hard’ about moving your businesses from 200 Montello Street, you plainly had to your knowledge a financial interest in the Ordinance when you participated as a City Councilor in its enactment.” 

The Public Education Letter further explains that because of his financial interest in the matter, Teixeira was barred by the conflict of interest law from participating as a city councilor in the enactment of the anti-camping ordinance unless an exception to this general prohibition applied to his situation. The one exception that could have possibly applied allows a municipal employee to participate in a matter of general policy, such as the adoption of a municipality-wide tax rate or the enactment of a comprehensive zoning by-law, if their financial interest in the matter is shared by at least 10 percent of the municipality’s population, the letter states. 

The Public Education Letter explains that the general policy exception did not apply to allow Teixeira’s participation in the enactment of the citywide anti-camping ordinance because his financial interest in the matter was apparently not shared by 10 percent or more of Brockton’s population. This, the letter explains, is because the enactment and enforcement of the anti-camping ordinance would have a greater and different kind of impact on the businesses and properties near the sites where unhoused people primarily gathered, whose owners, including Teixeira, more likely than not constitute less than 10 percent of Brockton’s population, than on others in the city. Thus, for Teixeira and other owners of businesses and property in areas of Brockton where unhoused people regularly congregated, the anti-camping ordinance was “a means to remedy or significantly reduce existing problems attributed to the ongoing gathering of large numbers of unhoused people that were reportedly causing area businesses to decline and companies to relocate and making area real estate less desirable. In short, …a way of preventing or, at least, reducing, further business losses and avoiding the financial cost of relocation”; for all other owners and Brockton residents generally, the ordinance was merely a preventative measure that might possibly benefit them, the letter states.  

Accordingly, concluding that the only exception that might have applied did not, the Commission found reasonable cause to believe Teixeira violated the conflict of interest law by participating in the City Council’s vote to enact the anti-camping ordinance and vote to override the mayor’s veto of the ordinance. 

The Commission decided to resolve the matter with a Public Education Letter rather than an adjudicatory proceeding against Teixeira because the Commission has not previously publicly explained how the conflict of interest law applies to an elected official’s participation in the enactment of an ordinance which seemingly applies broadly to the entire municipality, but in practice disproportionately affects a small minority that includes the elected official. The Commission expects that the Public Education Letter to Teixeira will provide public employees in similar circumstances with a clearer understanding of how to comply with the law.

The Commission encourages public employees to contact the Commission’s Legal Division at 617-371-9500 for free advice if they have any questions regarding how the conflict of interest law may apply to them.

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