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.

The Grants of a Conflicted Board of Insiders
Sometimes conflicts can cause a city or county serious problems with such things as state and federal grants. This is what has happened in Brockton, MA (pop. 94,000), according to an article in the Enterprise-News.

The board of the city's redevelopment organization, Building a Better Brockton (BBB), which oversees state and federal grants, has several members with direct connections to companies seeking money from BBB. Those members include two bankers, two local business owners, and the directors of the local housing authority, health center, business association, and YMCA. They are expected to resign soon.

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.

An interesting disagreement has arisen over what is required for a contract with a council member to constitute a conflict of interest in California. According to an article in the Valley Chronicle, the city of Hemet and the League of California Cities disagree with a grand jury about whether a particular council member has a conflict. The council member is the executive director, and her salary, taxes, etc. essentially the only expenditure, of a nonprofit organization running a program that is included in the city budget.

Update: November 11, 2009 (see below)

Is there any worse way to skirt government ethics rules and misuse public money and position than via a charitable organization? And yet it happens again and again. This time it happened in Baltimore, according to the results of an extensive investigation by the Baltimore Sun.

Again, a very public federal conflict of interest matter provides valuable material relevant to local government ethics. This time it's former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr.'s relationship with the firm he formerly headed, Goldman Sachs, the subject of a front-page story in Sunday's New York Times.