Austin City Council exempts themselves from ethics rules?

There may be more to it than what Spectrum News picked up on here:

The draft ordinance gave the City Auditor the ability to investigate the City Council and their staff members for allegations of a violation related to interfering with personnel matters. It was intended to prevent elected officials from pressuring city staff to go against their best professional judgment.
"The city auditor shall hire an external party to investigate the allegation if the city auditor finds that an allegation merits an investigation," the draft ordinance read. 

[...] That means a City Council member, their direct staff and the City Manager are not subject to due process.

Does this amount to a power-grab by city staff or a play for immunity by the City Council (or both)? It's all a tangled mess, but we'll keep an eye on this.

Read more: http://www.twcnews.com/tx/austin/news/2017/02/10/austin-council-exempts-itself--staff-from-ethics-review.html

(Hat-tip: Matt Mackowiak for posting this to Facebook.)