It's been over two years since I wrote about the indictments of former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father, and a city contractor. This morning, according to an article in the Detroit Free Press, the jury entered its verdicts. Kilpatrick was convicted on 24 of 30 counts, including five counts of extortion, racketeering, bribery and several mail, wire and tax fraud charges. The contractor was found guilty on nine of 11 counts, including racketeering and several counts of extortion.

What is the best way to prevent high-level officials from participating in matters involving departments or agencies where their close family members are employed, without doing this unreasonably, that is, excluding situations where the family members have no influence and will receive no benefits?

This is the question that has been raised in Baltimore by council members, particularly the council president who, according to an article in yesterday's Baltimore Sun, says he "abstains from about 20 percent of votes before the Board of Estimates, the city's spending panel, because he has four family members who work in city government:  a daughter who is a teacher in the city's Head Start program; a brother who is a laborer working for the Department of Public Works; a sister who works as a customer service representative in the Mayor's Office of Information Technology; and a brother who works in human resources in the city housing department."

“It’s much to-do about not much. I’m trying to run a city, and you’re worried about people’s relationships?” These are the words of Mount Vernon, NY mayor Ernest Davis, who is the subject of IRS and FBI investigations, and now an investigation by the city's ethics board, according to an article in Wednesday's Journal News.

Dealing responsibly with relationships is what government ethics all about. You can't deal responsibly with them unless you acknowledge them, and worry about them a little.

The Los Angeles mayoral race has unearthed some conflict of interest allegations that are worth a look. There are three interesting issues. One, how much stock ownership in a public company is required to give rise to a conflict? Two, what about ownership of a competitor? And three, what if you don't know a public company whose stock you own is involved in a matter before you?

According to an article in Los Angeles Times last week, one mayoral candidate accused another of having voted, as a council member, on a legal settlement that allowed Clear Channel Outdoor to convert hundreds of billboards to a digital format.

The first opinion of the District of Columbia's Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (a searchable copy is attached; see below) raises some interesting questions relating to enforcing unenforceable ethics provisions, vagueness, and publishing evidence and an opinion about a case that is being dismissed before an investigation has been conducted. The opinion also shows that the new ethics board has a long way to go up the learning curve of government ethics.

One of the rarely questioned truisms of local government ethics is, "One size does not fit all." Usually this means that one ethics code is not right for every city or county, that every jurisdiction has its own issues and problems.

In some ways this is true. New York City's huge ethics program is hardly appropriate to a small town, because there is such a large difference in available resources. But there is no difference when it comes to ethics rules or the need for training or independent advice and enforcement.

Think of it this way:  NYC has a huge corporation counsel office, which no town would think of copying. But every small town has a town attorney, and officials turn to the town attorney just as NYC officials turn to the corporation counsel for legal advice. Why shouldn't small town officials have access to professional ethics advice, as well, even if it's only from someone on contract, who bills only three hours a month?

"One size does not fit all" does not apply to basic ethics provisions, to enforcement processes, or to the administration of an ethics program. In other words, the truism is rarely appropriate to the situations where it is used, such as the drafting of a state model ethics code or the application of a good county ethics program's rules to one's own county.

One place where it does apply, however, is in the specifics. The specifics of conflicts in a procurement program are different from those for a planning commission or a local legislative body. Los Angeles has a unique system of conflict of interest codes that takes into account the true differences among agencies, departments, and boards.