Safra Working Papers | City Ethics

March 23, 2009

Two Ethics Developments in Texas

There are two interesting developments going on in Texas right now, and two bills that will be heard in committee today.

One involves a request to the state legislature by El Paso County to allow local governments to give their ethics commissions teeth (they now can only censure).

Ethics Codes & Reform September 9, 2009

Two Explanations of Why Ethics Laws Provide Only Minimum Standards

There is little in government ethics that is more important than recognizing that, unlike other laws, an ethics code provides only minimum standards. That is, a public servant is required to fulfill the letter of an ethics code, but this is just the start. In this way, ethics laws are not like ordinary laws. Why and in what way? Here are two different responses.

Private Interest vs. Public Interest

Conflicts of Interest April 13, 2015

Two from Chicago

Mixing Election Oversight and Professional Contracts

According to an Illinois Business Times article on April 5, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners is chaired by an attorney whose law firm has received presumably no-bid contracts to lobby for city agencies, that is, contracts from the administration whose mayor and alders were running for re-election.

Conflicts of Interest February 2, 2011

Two Interesting Twists on the Old Gift to an Official's Favorite Charity Gambit

According to an op-ed piece by a county commissioner from Collier County, Florida (in the Naples Daily News), two interesting twists on the gift to an official's favorite charity gambit occurred recently.

October 22, 2009

Two More HUD/City Loan Conflict Cases

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about how several government officials in Wausau mishandled a conflict situation involving the purchase of property fixed up with an interest-free loan from HUD. Yesterday's The State of South Carolina covers two other HUD loan conflict situations in Columbia, which are being handled only a bit better.

Conflicts of Interest December 10, 2009

Two Perspectives on Gift-Giving

I'm back from the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) conference, and I will be sharing some valuable information from the talks and panels I attended.

In a panel on gifts provisions in ethics codes, the panel consisted not only of the usual government ethics professionals, but also a lawyer who advises and defends lobbyists and those who do business with governments. One difference in their perspectives stood out.

March 16, 2010

Two Pleasant Surprises

The Partisanship of Ethics
The first pleasant surprise involves a blogger (Advance Indiana) who is disgusted with his own party's unethical conduct in his city/county, Indianapolis/Marion County. A native of Illinois, he compares it to Chicago, and he notes that his party took office because of the other party's unethical conduct. In this era of partisan blogging, it is nice to see recognition by a blogger of his own party's ethical problems.

Ethics Codes & Reform August 11, 2010

Two Very Different Views of Local Government Ethics

Below are the opinions of two candidates running in a primary for a seat on the Effingham County, GA commission, which perfectly present two very different views of local government ethics, one pseudo-religious (people are good or bad), the other professional (people need guidance):

July 24, 2014

Unacceptable Mischaracterization of an Ethics Settlement in D.C.

The District of Columbia's former chief administrative law judge settled with the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (BEGA) this week (the settlement agreement is attached; see below). The misconduct she admitted to included her hiring of a business partner without going through the standard hiring procedures, and contracting with a company owned by the business partner's boyfriend (see my detailed discussion of the charges against her).

Local Government Practice May 30, 2006

Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership

Terry L. Price's new book, Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership (Cambridge University Press, 2006), provoked in me a great deal of thinking about what is behind the ethical failures of elected and appointed municipal officials. I will be talking in terms of officials, but Price speaks only in terms of leaders in general, with an emphasis on governmental leaders. His central thesis is that such ethical failures are fundamentally cognitive rather than volitional, that is, they come not out of selfishness or will, but out of mistaken beliefs and limited knowledge.

Ethics Codes & Reform October 15, 2008

Understanding Is Everything

We don't know why the Summit County developer is running for a council seat (see the most recent blog entry), but we do know why a sheriff's sergeant in Rancho Murieta, California, is running for the Sacramento County Community Services District Board: to get off-duty sheriff's deputies to provide security in his area. And according to an article on ranchomurieta.com, he is very frustrated that, if elected, this is the one issue he won't be allowed to vote on.

Ethics Codes & Reform December 21, 2012

Understanding the Need for a Government Ethics Program

In a blog post two weeks ago, I welcomed an excellent, although sketchy, set of recommendations by a national law firm that amounted to a recommendation for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to set up a full-fledged ethics program.

Conflicts of Interest March 25, 2009

Unethical Harassment and Wearing Logos

When I saw the headline from the Anchorage Daily News, "Palin Calls Blogger's Ethics Complaint Bogus," and saw that it had to do with clothing the governor wore, I thought I might write a piece about using ethics complaints for the purpose of political harassment. But when I read the article, I realized that the complaint was not frivolous, and that the governor's criticism of it was worthy of taking note. And there's even an issue here that local government officials could learn from.

Conflicts of Interest October 20, 2012

Unpaid Advisers and the Misuse of Inside Information

A front-page article in today's New York Times looks on a conflict situation that is usually ignored: the unpaid adviser who effectively sells her inside, often confidential information to her clients. She is not technically a lobbyist, because her communications with officials are not intended to push for her clients' goals (although it is impossible to know whether her clients' goals affect her advice).

Conflicts of Interest July 26, 2012

Unpaid Legal Services to a Candidate Committee

Update: July 27, 2012 (see below)

Conflicts of Interest March 2, 2011

Unwritten Land Use Rules

I had a conversation with a developer the other day, which got me thinking in what I think are interesting ways about unwritten land use rules.

Pressures on Developers

July 12, 2008

Update on Oklahoma Ethics Commisson Funding

I recently reported that the Oklahoma Ethics Commission was considering suing the legislature for more funds, on the ground that the state constitution requires adequate funding for the EC, and the legislature had, among other limits, permitted it to have only one investigator.

September 21, 2010

Update on Vernon, The Ultimate Company Town

Those who, like me, are fascinated by Vernon, California, the ultimate company town, with an ethical environment that breaks nearly all the rules, will be happy to know that it was given a long treatment in a front-page article in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. There are no new revelations, but a few good quotes.

January 21, 2009

Updates re Rhode Island and Oregon - Legislative Immunity and Annual Disclosure

Rhode Island - Legislative Immunity

Transparency & Disclosure January 26, 2010

Use of Private E-Mail Accounts for Public Business

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.

There are lots of new rules about using government computers for personal purposes, a new spin on the common misuse of public property provision (most often violated by the use of government vehicles and equipment).