Safra Working Papers

Ethics Code Amendment Without a Scandal
Sometimes conflict situations, when they are handled responsibly, lead to changes in an ethics code. This happened recently in Prince William County, Virginia, according to an article on the insidenova.com website.

Wow! Get a Load of Those Salaries!
It's official. People get more upset over big salaries to government officials than over bribes, kickbacks, unbid contracts, and the like, which cost taxpayers far, far more.

Baltimore Mayor Resigns
Baltimore's mayor resigned on Wednesday, fortunately after being convicted of the crime of embezzlement (albeit for $500 in gift cards) rather than the ethics violation (not yet tried) of failing to include gifts on her financial disclosure statement (see Baltimore Sun article).

Targeting Ethics Reform
In May, I wrote a blog post about ethics reforms proposed by a Cook County (IL) commissioner. I felt they didn't have much chance of passing.

Waiving the Privilege and The Extent of Withdrawal
According to an article in yesterday's Business Journal Daily, the Ohio Ethics Commission, which has jurisdiction over local government ethics, is investigating the Western Reserve Port Authority's lease of property at the local airport near Youngstown. Two controversies have arisen from this investigation that should be of interest to government ethics professionals.

Party Committee Members on EC
According to an article in the Hartford Courant this week, a Newington, CT mayoral candidate, and council minority leader, who has made ethics allegations against the incumbent mayor has chosen not to file an ethics complaint because, she says, two of the four members of the town's ethics board are also members of the opposing party's town committee, one of them the nominating chair of the committee.

Electing EC Members
Is electing an ethics commission a good idea? I had never heard of an elected EC until this week, when I read that the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, an Indian nation in Kansas, canceled an EC election for four out of six seats, because there were no candidates.

A Poor Approach to Being Ethical
It's great when candidates talk up acting ethically. But it's going too far, and setting a bad precedent, when a candidate takes a lie-detector test in which he says that he never engaged in unethical activities in private- or public-sector work, as reported in the Moultrie (GA) Observer.

Governors Aren't Always Governors
The involvement of New York governor David Paterson in his aide's domestic abuse matter gets right to the heart of government ethics.

According to an article in today's New York Times, Paterson told a state employee and mutual friend of his and the domestic abuse victim's, “Tell her the governor wants her to make this go away."

A Clever Use of Government Employees for Political Purposes
According to an article in the Miami Herald, it appears that the mayor of Miami-Dade County, currently facing a recall election, is playing a clever little game that involves the use of government employees for political purposes.

The story of state legislative interference with local government ethics programs in Florida continues with a newly amended bill in the state senate (SB 1474 is attached; see below), sponsored by senator Joe Abruzzo, whose antagonism to the Palm Beach County ethics program has been the subject of three City Ethics blog posts in the past year (audit of the Palm Beach County program,

The New York City Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) recently issued an advisory opinion (attached, see below) on the subject of conflicts involving city council discretionary funds, a topic I wrote about last year. This is a model advisory opinion, especially in the way it provides a number of scenarios to which it applies the city's relevant ethics provisions. The opinion goes beyond any single request for advice to provide advice for as great a range of possible situations as the staff could imagine.

There is nothing more natural and, in most circumstances, ethical than a mother doing her best to help her son when he is in trouble. And yet, in most jurisdictions, there are multiple government ethics laws that prohibit this very conduct when the mother is a government official. This is as good an example as there is of the fact that government ethics is not about ethical conduct in general, but rather about government fiduciaries dealing responsibly with their conflicts of interest.

Here's an election story with a conflict of interest angle. In Crescent City, California (pop. 7,500) on the beautiful California coast up near the Oregon border, the little city's former finance director is running for clerk.

I don't get it. Such a big deal has been made out of the Bell, CA officials paying themselves big bucks. This was considered the big local government ethics story of the last few years. The Los Angeles Times won a Pulitizer Prize for uncovering it.

On April 17, the District of Columbia ethics board filed recommendations for ethics reform with the council (see my blog post on the recommendations). Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie has introduced a bill that includes some of these recommendations (attached; see below).