Safra Working Papers

Resources & Learning May 27, 2008

Book Review: Emil "Bud" Krogh, Integrity

It took a long time for Egil "Bud" Krogh to write his book on Watergate, but it finally came out a few months ago.

Krogh is not one of the better known Watergaters, partly because he pleaded guilty to his crimes. But as the head of the Plumbers, in charge of investigating leaks to the press, he oversaw the break-in of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. For years he has been giving lectures on ethics, a program he calls the Integrity Zone (and his book is entitled Integrity).
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Resources & Learning January 2, 2008

Book Review: Jane Jacobs' Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics

Not one of the recent books in my ethics library cites Jane Jacobs’ 1993 work, Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics. The citations I found on-line do not include any about government ethics. This is a big loss for the government ethics community, because Jacobs, who died a couple of years ago, gave us a lot to think about. And we’ve been missing out. Jacobs’ book (in the form of a dialogue among a group of people) sets out two separate and opposed, yet symbiotic moral syndromes.
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Resources & Learning April 20, 2015

Books of Interest

Most books of relevance to local government ethics deal with administrative ethics, that is, the ethical behavior of government administrators, rather than with conflicts or government ethics programs. However, they do deal partially with government ethics, and it is valuable to see how government ethics fits in the larger context of administrative ethics. Most of the books on government ethics deal primarily with the federal and state levels; the ones that focus on local government are either old or international.

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November 3, 2010

Broward County Ethics Reform Passes, But Budget Concerns Remain

Broward County (FL) voters embraced (3-1) two ethics questions on the ballot yesterday, which applied the new county code of ethics to all municipalities in the county as well as to all constitutional offices (including the sheriff, appraiser, and clerk). They voted 6-1 for the question "Allow counties to show taxpayers the portion of property taxes attributable to constitutional officers." But this extremely reasonable matter still has to be approved by the state.
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February 3, 2014

Broward County IG Report on Countywide Ethics Program

This week, the Broward County (FL) inspector general filed a Review of the Existing Ethics Structure (attached; see below) of the countywide ethics program that he oversees, and which came into being via charter amendments overwhelmingly approved by the county's voters in late 2010. The 21-page report focuses on a two-part reform recommendation:  (1) an ethics officer who would uniformly interpret the Code and provide precedential advisory opinion
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January 14, 2010

Broward County Legislators Drag the County's Ethics Feet

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, the Broward County (FL; home of Ft. Lauderdale) commissioners are seeking to have an ethics code (enforced by an inspector general; it's being drafted) apply to county employees, as well. For some reason, this not only must go to referendum, but must also be approved by a majority each of state senators and representatives whose constituency touches on Broward County.
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February 20, 2009

Budget Games and Gimmicks

Agreeing on the local government budget is the most important thing that the government does every year, because it affects every department and agency. But with the exception of the big issues of the year, it's a pretty arcane process often accomplished behind closed doors. Thus, it provides excellent opportunities for unethical conduct, very little of it dealt with in ethics codes.
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April 9, 2007

Budgetary Hijinks

Below is an op-ed piece I wrote this week for the North Haven Post about the unethical conduct involved in my town's budget process. Nothing was done illegally or in violation of the town's mediocre ethics code.
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June 20, 2011

Bullying an Ethics Board Pays Off in Sioux Falls

It staggers the imagination how combative local government officials can sometimes be with respect to ethics commissions. A year ago, I wrote about a former Sioux Falls (SD) council member, Kermit Staggers, who attacked complaints filed by the city's ethics board as "frivolous" and attacked its procedures when it gave him two private, that is confidential, reprimands.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration July 31, 2014

CA Appellate Court Protects EC Legal Advice on the Basis of Privilege

The logic of a California appellate decision on Monday, in the case of St. Croix v. Superior Court (A140308, July 28, 2014) (attached; see below), doesn't seem right to me. It skips steps. St. Croix is the executive director of the San Francisco Ethics Commission, and this matter involves a public records request for documents relating to the commission’s regulations governing ethics complaints. Here's how the court's logic goes:
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