It's not every day that a neighboring town makes the front page of the New York Times. It's especially surprising when the reason is, at heart, a local government ethics problem.

The town is East Haven, CT (most recently in the national news for a part of it being overrun by waves during Hurricane Irene), and the problem ostensibly involves the mistreatment of immigrants in town by certain police officials. That's the criminal point of view. But the real problem is loyalty. The police, and certain town officials, put their loyalty to each other ahead of their loyalty to the town's residents. Four police officers have been indicted, one of them the head of the police union, and it appears that the union and the mayor are solidly behind them.

As I near the end of writing my local government ethics book, I am going over local government ethics codes looking for unusual, but valuable provisions to include in a special section that follows my discussion of the run-of-the-mill provisions.

I would like to share one of these provisions that is truly worth thinking about. It appears in the Windsor, CO ethics code:

§5.2.M. No elected or appointed official or public body member shall offer or promise to give his or her vote or influence in favor of or against any proposed official action in consideration or upon condition that any other elected or appointed official, public body member, will promise or assent to give his or her vote or influence in favor of or against any other proposed official action.

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.

One of the most damaging kinds of preferential treatment is one that is hard to pin on any one individual:  public works work done for some, but not for others, or done for some before being done for others. Whether or not this is done in any particular city or county, people talk about it, speculating that it is done, talking about things they've seen and heard. It's an important part of the perception that local government is run for those in government and those with political connections, and that the "important" areas of town (i.e., where the wealthy and powerful live) are favored.

And who is to say it's not happening? Denials are meaningless, explanations often futile.

Enter modern technology, more specifically GPS and online mapping. This is how, as of today, Chicago is dealing with suspicions that some areas of the city are being favored over others when it comes to the city's most important public works work:  snow plowing. The city has unveiled something it calls Plow Tracker on its Chicago Shovels page, which includes other relevant programs, such as Snow Corps, a way to lend a hand to neighbors who can't shovel their walks.

A good followup to my last blog post, on Lawrence Lessig's book, is what Jack Abramoff said on 60 Minutes this Sunday, pushing his new book Capitol Punishment.

America's most infamous lobbyist went almost overboard condemning both himself and the system by which lobbyists get what they want out of Congress. He said that he would make job offers to congressional aides, and once he did so, "We owned them. Every request we make, they're going to do it." Former Rep. Bob Ney's chief of staff said on the show that he had a "corrupt relationship" with Abramoff, who offered him a job at a hockey game. Ney, who also did time (the only member related to this scandal to do so) said that he and Abramoff were "involved in a culture of corruption together."

Lawrence Lessig's excellent new book Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (Twelve, Oct. 5, 2011) is about Congress and mostly about campaign finance, but it is also an important look at institutional corruption that has some valuable things to say that are relevant to local government ethics.

Lessig, who is director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, came to government ethics in an interesting fashion. As a law professor specializing in copyright law, he sought to make out-of-print but copyrighted books available to the public. But his efforts, as reasonable, as clearly in the public interest, and as consistent with the Constitution (which actually mentions copyright) as can be, went nowhere. Instead, copyrights were extended more and more.

Institutional Corruption
Lessig came to realize that what caused these extensions, institutional corruption, is "the gateway problem: until we solve it, we won't solve any number of other critical problems." True reform, in any area, is impossible as long as the current institutional situation remains. Therefore, he switched his focus from copyright to government ethics, with an emphasis on campaign finance.