In the news | City Ethics

Transparency & Disclosure March 27, 2007

Government Ethics for Citizens

Personal interest vs. public interest is central to government ethics. We tend to think, however, that it's central to them (officials) not to us (citizens), and that we have nothing to learn from this sort of ethics. Well, we're wrong. Take flu shots, for instance. People get flu shots because the…

March 21, 2007

Bitterness Instead of Understanding

No Retreat, No Surrender: One Man's Fight.' If only this were the title of a civil rights leader's memoir. But no civil rights leader would talk about 'one' man's fight; it was a group effort. Only someone who falsely sees himself as walking into a sunset alone after a gunfight would use that subti…

March 19, 2007

Blaming Those Who Call for Ethical Conduct - Quote of the Day

Connecticut House Speaker James A. Amann has been receiving a great deal of criticism for asking lobbyists for contributions to the charity he works for as a paid fundraiser (including criticism from me: see my blog entry on fundraising problems). He has insisted that his solicitations are legal, a…

March 15, 2007

Today's Weak Defense of Serious Conflict

South Africa's police commissioner upon the revelation that he had met privately and repeatedly with a drug kingpin: "Does that mean that anyone who has an appointment with him is a criminal?"

Resources & Learning March 6, 2007

Top Ten Ethics Films

We have been batting this around for a while, and have come up with the following list: The Top Ten BEST ETHICS Movies of all time 1. Man for All Seasons Paul Scofield brilliantly plays Thomas More who stands up for his principals against the ultimate difficult boss, King Henry VIIII. In the end, h…

February 22, 2007

An Intelligent Lay Discussion of Conflicts of Interest

Here's an interesting, intelligent lay discussion about a particular alleged conflict of interest, and how to deal with local conflicts in general. It centers around an entry in a local-politics-oriented blog in Davis, California.

February 15, 2007

It Takes a Village: Behind the Indictment of Philadelphia's Vincent Fumo

Either the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is the head of a vicious manhunt unknown since the days of J. Edgar Hoover, or Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent J. Fumo has not only failed to apologize for all that he has done, but he has, like so many unethical politicians befor…

January 16, 2007

A Good Example of a Bad Government Organizational Culture

There's a lot of talk about organizational culture and the effect it can have on individuals' unethical conduct, but it's rare to find reported instances of poor organizational cultures that aren't extreme, such as Chicago. Even Enron had an excellent ethics program, and its misconduct appears to h…

January 4, 2007

Conflict of Interest or Expertise?

One thing that's good about local government is that so much of it is done by volunteers. Volunteers aren't professional politicians. They have something better to do with their time. Yes, most of them do. But for many, government service is central to what they do with the great bulk of their time…

Conflicts of Interest January 2, 2007

Ethics Rules for Local Government Attorneys?

Local government attorneys have special conflict of interest problems. Should there be ethics rules particularly aimed toward them? Here's a recent example of a situation that could have been prevented by such rules. In Reading, Pennsylvania, a city councilman asked the city's Board of Ethics for a…

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