Here's an interesting political activity situation out of La Crosse County, Wisconsin. According to an article in the La Crosse Tribune last week, the county administrator was involved in supporting a referendum to give the city of La Crosse its own administrator. A city or county manager is not supposed to be involved in local politics, according to the ethics code of their own professional association, ICMA. But this issue was not in the county government, although it was in the county. And the administrator considers his support "promotion of my profession" rather than political activity.

According to the blog of Kansas City, MO's mayor, Sly James, the KC Commission on Ethics Reform will be holding a public hearing tomorrow on its draft ethics code.

It's clear from the draft that the commission made excellent use of the City Ethics Model Code. The result is a good draft that falls short in a few very important areas.

Most important, the ethics commission would be selected by the mayor. The mayor would even select who the chair is, something that is ordinarily left to a board or commission. Any time the commission is seen as letting off the mayor or a mayoral ally, or coming down hard on a mayoral opponent, it will undermine the public's trust in the ethics program. There would be a big conflict at the heart of a program designed to prevent conflicts and to gain the public's trust in its city government. Ethics commission independence, real and perceived, is the single most important part of an ethics program. It is the foundation on which everything else stands.

Here's an interesting conflict question. According to an article in the Tewksbury Patch this week, a special town meeting in Tewksbury, MA will soon vote on whether to go to referendum on the question of replacing the town meeting with a council. The question is whether the elected town meeting moderator, who gets a $450 stipend for his work, has a conflict that will require him not to moderate the special town meeting, because he has a financial interest in preserving the town meeting and, therefore, his stipend.

On Saturday, I attended a one-day conference on Institutional Corruption sponsored by the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University (videos of it will eventually appear here). Although local government was scarcely mentioned (there was one image of a painting that portrayed the 1930s machine in Kansas City, MO), many ideas that were discussed are applicable to local government ethics.

I will start with the ideas of Mark Warren, a professor at the University of British Columbia, not because he was the first or best speaker, but because, on the train to Boston, I read the online draft of his 2005 paper "Democracy Against Corruption" and found it fascinating. His talk at the conference presented some of the same ideas.

Local governments often give special recognition to individuals and organizations. It's part of promoting the good works that are being done in the community. But it is also, of course, a form of preferential treatment. For every individual and organization that is recognized for good works, there are many others that are not recognized.

If each high-level official could provide his own special recognition to individuals and organizations in the community, then everyone would have a better chance of being recognized. But there would also be more chance for the misuse of office to reward (and obtain) supporters and contributors rather than good works, and to get in the good graces of various constituencies in the community.

This interesting issue arises from a front page article in today's New York Times about the frequency with which New York City's comptroller has handed out official commendations, 760 of them in his two years in office, a little more than one a day. Not only does he make the commendations, but he gives priority to the ceremonies attached to them. Unlike other officials, he usually delivers the commendations personally at events.

An ethics bill in the District of Columbia, sponsored by council member Muriel Bowser, went quickly through committee and was passed by the council, with only one dissenting vote, on December 20 (the final committee bill can be found here). What's amazing about it is that, despite the speed with which it moved, Bowser's staff made many improvements to the bill in response to critiques from me and others. It is not a perfect bill, of course, but it's a pretty special gift for the holiday season.