City Related

A year ago, I wrote about New York City Council's earmark funds and the ways they were being abused. Atlanta's council members have a different sort of fund, not intended to help their constituents, but intended to help themselves.

See update below

Ethics is popular in Illinois right now, so popular that two mayoral candidates in the Village of Niles, a northwest suburb of Chicago (pop. 30,000), are putting it at the center of their campaigns. But it's not ethics as most of us like to think of it.

Are loans to businesses that do business with a city sufficient to create a conflict of interest? This is the question that has been batted around recently in Washington, D.C., according to an article in today's Washington Post.

The new year is a good time for ethics commissions and officers to look ahead to 2009 and set goals and priorities. According to an article in today's Jacksonville Daily Record, this is exactly what the Jacksonville (FL) ethics commission did at its first meeting of the new year. As did the city's ethics officer, City Ethics' very own Carla Miller.

Sacramento recently had an interesting situation, which set off accusations of conflicts of interest. According to an article in the Sacramento Bee, the newly-elected weak mayor came into office with a volunteer transition team, consisting primarily of people who have business with the city or represent people and entities that have business with the city.

The Baltimore mayor's attorney has, only days after his client was indicted, given a course to drafters of local government ethics codes on how not to define "doing business" with a local government.

When the entire ethics commission of a major county resigns, something is seriously wrong. This is what recently happened in Jackson County, MO, home of Kansas City and Independence.

“There’s no conflict,” the mayor said last night. “It wouldn’t be a story if his name wasn’t Menino.” (from a recent Boston Herald article)

This is Boston's mayor, Thomas M. Menino, speaking about his son's year-old job for a construction company that has done a great deal of business with the city, which regularly gets permits from the city, and which has given a lot of money to the mayor's campaigns and inaugural committees.

The status of a local government attorney is important. An external local government attorney, that is, one not employed full-time by the government, is still seen as the top legal official in town, someone whose word is effectively law, especially at government meetings. Such an attorney is also seen as representing the public interest whenever the government is involved.

Here's an interesting case study from Council Bluffs, IA. According to an article in yesterday's Daily Nonpareil, there is an issue involving whether a new county board member who sits on the board of the Iowa West Foundation has a conflict of interest.