City Related

Update: December 10, 2010 (see below)

Update: February 5, 2010 (see below)

Here's an interesting dual position question, that is, a question involving one individual holding two government positions. The most important conflict involved in dual positions is that you cannot consistently fulfill your fiduciary obligations to one constituency while fulfilling your obligations to the other. See my blog post on state-local dual positions for a discussion of more possible dual-position conflicts.

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court published its decision relating to the conflict of interest charges against five members of San Diego's pension board, which I discussed a couple months ago in a blog post.

Many local government ethics codes have a provision that, when officials publicly give personal opinions rather than the government's position, requires them to clearly state that they are not representing the local government. Here's the one from the ethics code in Santa Clarita (CA) where, according to an article yesterday in the Santa Clarita Valley Signal, the provision has become an issue.

Which is the more troubling misuse of office? A local government official having a citizen arrested for criticizing him, or a local government official using tax dollars to pay off a citizen so that it doesn't come out that the politician has influence over whom the police arrest?

This choice of evils comes from a Jim Dwyer column in today's New York Times. The article contains two similar stories, one complete, the other still in process.

According to a January 15 memorandum, a week from today the Dallas city council will be considering an amendment to the city's ethics code, which would exclude municipal management district (MMD) board members from the ethics code (it has already been approved by the council's economic development committee).

Assuming you can learn a lot from the mistakes made in local government ethics matters in cities and towns other than your own, there is a great deal to learn from a simple ethics matter that, through a number of mistakes, oversights and, apparently, partisanship has been turned into a big issue in the city of Torrington (CT; pop. 36,000). There's also a lesson to be learned about the confidentiality of ethics commission decisions.

The Need for Regular Ethics Commission Meetings

"My e-mail boxes are full of angry letters about [former Baltimore mayor] Dixon's retirement package being left intact. The deal to resolve this case and get Ms. Dixon out of office seems to have sparked more public emotion than the mayor's transgressions." (Dan Rodricks' column in the Baltimore Sun)

Every bad situation has a nightmare equivalent. The nightmare equivalent of mayoral misuse of public office and public property for personal benefit seems to have occurred in the Philippines.

It's not an unfamiliar story. Council candidates promise ethics reform. They are elected, and actually fulfill their promises with a proposed ethics ordinance. But there's not really much to the proposed ethics ordinance, and there's no enforcement mechanism.