In my previous blog post, the issue arose of voiding a planning and zoning commission's approval of a permit because one of the commission members had a conflict of interest. Connecticut law automatically invalidates the commission action, without any individual or body having to act. But this is unusual. In fact, most jurisdictions do not expressly provide for the avoidance of permits, contracts, or other transactions.

An unpublished Connecticut Superior Court opinion takes an odd approach to a conflict of interest charge against a member of a zoning commission in the small town of Pomfret (pop. 4,000). Not only is it odd, but it could very well be unconstitutional, as it partly bases its decision on whether individuals have spoken out for or against a matter before the zoning commission. My thanks go to Patricia Salkin, who wrote about the decision in her excellent Law of the Land blog and sent me a copy of the decision.

An article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer says that the state's inspector general has found that, despite past problems, the South Jersey Transportation Authority has gotten its act together, ethically speaking. But go to the authority's News Clip page, and all it says is "Nothing to Report." After all, a 103-page inspector general's report detailing the authority's ethical misconduct isn't worth reporting, is it? It's a professionally designed website, but there appears to be nothing about ethics or compliance, and no search line to find it.

I recently noted Oakland, CA's odd nepotism ordinance. Well, its Public Ethics Commission is also odd, and worthy of a look. I was alerted to some of its oddities by a recent A Better Oakland blog post entitled "Does Oakland Need a Public Ethics Commission?" An odd question from someone who does not have an ax to grind against campaign finance laws.

Many ethics commissions handle campaign finance and lobbying matters as well as conflict of interest or ethics matters, but Oakland's handles almost exclusively the former, despite its name. It does have jurisdiction over the city's conflict of interest code (Ch. 3-16 of the Code of Ordinances), but this "code" is nothing but an incorporation by reference of a state law that requires financial disclosure and has only two provisions, a basic conflict of interest provision and a provision on loans to officials. Neither the city code nor the EC website provides a link to this state law.

One thing I have scarcely mentioned in my blog are ethical rules related to a local board or commission when it is acting in a quasi-judicial manner. I mentioned the common-law conflicts in such circumstances in a recent blog post, as well as the absolute immunity given to the Philadelphia ethics board due to its quasi-judicial activities in another recent blog post.

But the only mention of an ethics law relating to quasi-judicial activities is in a comment to another recent blog post. The comment says that in Washington state, when a local legislative body acts in a quasi-judicial manner, there is an appearance of fairness standard relating to its members' conflicts.

Some situations clearly involve a conflict of interest, but are not dealt with in a local government ethics code. Two issues arise. One is the quality of the local government ethics code. The other is whether the code matters at all, if the conflict is clear.

Such a situation exists with respect to a council member in Bellevue, WA, a Seattle suburb, with the extra twist that the city's ethics code applies to employees, and the state ethics code applies to council members.