The Chicago Ethics Reform Task Force report was published yesterday. Well, at least Part 1 was published. As I said in my blog post about the announcement of the task force's creation, "four months, including the holiday season, is a short time for four people and their likely inexperienced lawyers to deal with a huge city's ethics program."

The task force managed to draft an 83-page report in a little less than five months, which is a major feat. The report reflects a great amount of research and contains a lot of good ideas. But the report does not present a vision of a comprehensive ethics program for Chicago. It merely makes recommendations, 34 of them to be precise.

There are people who get great satisfaction going after the ethics of government ethics professionals. Rarely are their accusations relevant to government ethics; it's just about showing that we're not good people, either, as if government ethics was just about good and bad. Maybe we should wear t-shirts that say, on the front, "We're Not Perfect," and on the back, "So?"

Yes, boys and girls, it's time for another episode of every government ethics lover's favorite tale, Vernon and the Dragons. In the last episode, back in November, the dragon known as Los Angeles County was considering a proposal to require the city of Vernon to competitively bid housing for the city, which houses very few people, and mostly friends of government insiders (it used to be mostly city employees). The county was also considering a state constitutional amendment proposal, and the Los Angeles district attorney was pushing Vernon's disincorporation, a fancy word for what happened to Humpty Dumpty. In other words, lots of nasty people had lots of nasty ideas to hurt poor little ol' Vernon, who never hurt a flea.

Now, according to an article in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times, the dragon known as L.A. (the city) is considering a proposal to annex Vernon if it can be disincorporated.

Vernon is not completely defensive against these horrible monsters, however. It has two tricks up its sleeve. One was simply stated by the city administrator (whose two predecessors were indicted by those nasty people): "The city of L.A. would be absorbing over $1 billion in debt. Are you ready for that?" This is pretty much what every great hero has said to every dragon who threatened to eat him alive: you'd be biting off more than you can chew.

In February, Florida governor Charlie Crist asked for a grand jury to report on government corruption in Florida. The first interim report was filed yesterday. Its recommendations involve local government as well as state ethics laws.

An Ethics Matters newsletter from the Atlanta ethics officer is always a valuable occasion for those interested in local government ethics. The fall newsletter is no exception (to subscribe, e-mail ethicsofficer@atlantaga.gov). This is the first of two blog posts about matters raised in the fall newsletter.

One newsletter article concerns a matter I wrote about in June. The matter involves a farewell dinner paid for by companies doing business with the department, with funds passed through the local chamber of commerce, which meant that no report was legally due on gifts made for the occasion.

I am conducting a national research study on government ethics programs with a focus on training. This research is being done in connection with the Ethics Center of the University of North Florida. Cities across the U.S. are being studied as to their ethics program structure, training requirements and training methods.