City Related

Back in January, I wrote a blog entry focusing on the lack of transparency in the credit rating business so central to the subprime mortgage mess that has brought the world economy to its knees. Transparency, it has become clear, is all important.

It's not quite civil disobedience by county officials, but Michigan's senate majority leader has asked the Attorney General to block what those officials are doing, according to an article yesterday on mlive.com (Booth Newspapers).

I've already written about the conflict of interest problems involved in the New York City term limits dispute.

See update and second update below
People in the government ethics field can be very arrogant. I know I can. But it's horrible to see it in action, especially when it's turned against what we commonly think of as good government.

Sometimes city councils feel compelled to write or improve their city's ethics law due to a scandal. Sometimes city councils are compelled by a ballot measure. And in both instances, the council isn't happy with the result.

In San Diego, the ethics code came via ballot measure in 2002, and yes, the city council doesn't seem all that happy with the result. So it is doing what it can to undermine the ballot measure and to keep the ethics commission's work out of the public eye.

See below for two updates

I've written a lot about politicians' charities, and how they allow lobbyists and others to get around limits on campaign contributions. But an article in today's New York Times presents a new form of abuse of a politician's charities (although it's not as different as it first seems).

To what extent should financial disclosure rules be applied to nonprofits that do government work?

According to an article in Sunday's New York Times, two years ago New York State extended disclosure requirements to the board members of nonprofits "affiliated with, sponsored by or created by a county, city, town or village government." The goal was more transparency in quasi-governmental organizations.

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.

Expertise is one of the most difficult issues in local government ethics. In most cases, more expertise also means more potential conflicts of interest, and yet it can also mean more effective government. According to an article in yesterday's Park Record (Park City, UT), a Summit County Council candidate running against the head of a development company is focusing on this issue.