making local government more ethical

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Ethics Environments

Robert Wechsler
In your county, a major corruption investigation is being conducted by the FBI. Already, nearly twenty county employees, city building inspectors, and businessmen have pleaded guilty (see an earlier blog post on the investigation). Others are holding out. What do you do?

The usual answer is to create an effective ethics program. In Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, two sets of officials are instead talking about the...
Robert Wechsler
How can a lawyer responsibly deal with the following situation? A former city attorney, he has been general counsel to the city's sports authority, which oversees three major sports with three stadiums (and there's talk of a fourth, which the lawyer has publicly supported). The lawyer is also special counsel to the city's transit and port...
Robert Wechsler
One of the principal reasons I have devoted myself to local government ethics is that the ethical habits of government officials and politicians are usually formed at the local level. Politicians who become accustomed to a poor local ethics environment bring their values to state and federal government.

The saddest side of this is that many politicians learn at the local level that running on an anti-corruption platform is a good way to get elected, but that once elected, ethics...
Robert Wechsler
There's a lot of talk about the lack of government ethics in Albany, New York State's capital, but not much about the state of government ethics in the city of Albany itself. In July, the Albany Times-Union ran a long article on the mayor and the police chief's relationship with the city's largest developer. It also noted that the city council is considering an ethics code for the city (...
Robert Wechsler
It's rare to see the clear results of unethical behavior in local government. Sadly, exceptionally clear results can be seen in a front-page article in today's New York Times.

Jefferson County, Alabama, the home of Birmingham, had a serious scandal involving sewer repairs and bonds, which I wrote about last year (...
Robert Wechsler
A few local government ethics issues come together in the story behind the arrest today of 44 people in a political corruption and international money laundering ring based in New Jersey. The story is best told, so far, in the press release of the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.

Among...

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