When a major newspaper's editorial on a city council's handling of an important ethics issue begins with "Sneaky. Real sneaky." it's something worth sharing with those interested in local government ethics.

Misuse of government resources, nepotism, transparency, and the obligations of government attorneys are all issues in litigation over a village's secret use of a contaminated well for 20% of the village's water supply, according to an article in Sunday's Chicago Tribune.

It's been almost two years since the New York Times broke the story on the abuses of New York City council earmarks slush fund, which totaled about $50 million a year. This week, the council member featured in the Times article was expelled from the state senate for a violent act committed against his female companion, according to an article in yesterday's Times. And according to a Times article today, another council member was indicted by a federal grand jury for much the same sort of conduct. Not the violence, but the misuse of council earmarks to help himself and his family, which included charges of money laundering, extortion, and fraud.

But unlike the violent council member, this one was enabled by hundreds of elected and appointed city officials.

Some lawyers abuse or misrepresent the lawyer-client privilege and client confidentiality to protect their own unethical conduct. But no one does it better than elected government officials who also happen to be lawyers, and have the ability to draft ethics laws.

A report by the New York City Bar Association, Reforming New York State's Financial Disclosure Requirements for Attorney-Legislators, which was published in January, could identify only four states -- Washington, California, Alaska, and Louisiana -- that have financial disclosure requirements for elected officials which extend to attorneys. In other words, the other states exclude attorneys from disclosing information about their work and the origins of their livelihood. And in Alaska and Louisiana, disclosure requirements were extended to attorneys only in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

I continue to be thankful for Sarah Palin's incredible ability to get pedestrian government ethics issues into the public eye. This time it's the use of private e-mails for public business, according to an article in yesterday's New York Times.

When I started getting involved with my town's government several years ago, I quickly found that limited access to budget and other financial information was a serious problem. The town government would not even put the annual budget online, despite the fact that my town has town meetings to discuss the budget and a budget referendum thereafter. It was clear that the board of selectmen and the department heads did not want the public to be able to prepare for these meetings and ask difficult questions.