Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson on Friday carried out an inaugural promise to pick an ethics czar to rewrite the city’s ethics code.

Johnson announced that Tim Powers, a managing partner at major law firm Haynes and Boone LLP who has been chairman of the Ethics Advisory Commission for a few months, will lead a working group that would scrutinize the ethics code and recommend changes. Johnson said he wants the City Council to vote on the recommendations by June.

“Our first job as city leaders is to prevent breakdowns in that trust, and if we fail, we’re expected to respond strongly and swiftly,” Johnson said at a news conference Friday. “We have seen too many Dallas leaders engaged in improprieties.”

Johnson on Friday was joined by five council members — Jennifer Staubach Gates, Chad West, Cara Mendelsohn, Omar Narvaez and Adam McGough.

During his campaign, Johnson ran, in part, on a promise to hold elected officials accountable and fix the city’s reputation for corruption.

Former Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway in April was convicted in a federal corruption case and sentenced to 56 months in prison, following a long line of previous Dallas City Hall officials involved in scandals. Former council member Carolyn Davis, who has since died, also pleaded guilty to a federal corruption charge in March.

Powers said he was “honored” to serve in the new role, which is an unpaid volunteer position.

“I will do, with our working group, the very best that I can to bring the ethics reform that our city and our citizens expect," he said.

In his few months as chairman of the Ethics Advisory Commission, Powers has ruled over one complaint against a council member.

Last month, the commission found council member Casey Thomas to have violated the ethics code when he didn’t report tickets he received from the city’s tourism arm, VisitDallas. The commission cleared Thomas on another part of the code on whether the tickets were intended to influence him on city conduct.

The commission chose the lowest form of sanction, which was to notify council members of the violation. Thomas promised to recuse himself from all VisitDallas votes for the remainder of his term.

Powers said that while he felt the code appropriately responded to Thomas’ violation, he wants expectations of elected officials to be clear in the code.

Johnson on Friday said the city shouldn’t put the onus on members of the public to bring ethics violations forward, and wants more “teeth” to deter officials from unethical behavior.

“Rarely do public leaders lose their way all at once,” he said.

Johnson didn’t elaborate on what the repercussions could look like but said he wants the working group to review what other cities have done.

The mayor said he wants the new recommendations to also examine ethics requirements for city staffers, not just elected officials. He has not directed Powers to examine any particular departments or areas of government but feels “confident” that current council members are committed to ethics reform, he said.

Council member West on Friday said the efforts are necessary but hopes the rewrite won’t lead to “overregulating" and instead makes the code clearer.

“I think it will give the public confidence that we might not always agree up here ... but we’re all going to be acting more ethically and trying to follow those rules," West said. “The devil’s advocate in me thinks that if a person is unethical, if they’re going to violate the rules, they’re going to find a way to do it no matter what.”