City Related

What happened recently in Colorado makes it clear that a state constitution is not the right place for ethics laws. Last November, an amendment to the state constitution was approved by voters, prohibiting state and local officials from accepting any gift of over $50 from any 'person.' The state Attorney General ruled that this amendment would prevent the child of a government official from a receiving a scholarship, or a state university professor from accepting a Nobel Prize. Click here to read the rest of this blog entry. A suit was file

I've been on a sort of work-leave the last two weeks. My town, North Haven, Connecticut (pop. 24,000), has been a mess for a long time, but few people have cared enough to pay attention, and those who criticize the administration are personally attacked and delegitimized. It was my town's mess, and my inability to do anything locally, that led me to do work for Common Cause Connecticut, and then devote myself full-time to municipal ethics by coming to work for City Ethics. Sadly, it takes a big scandal to grab people's attention, as much as we like to think there are other ways.

Memphis has been the scene of some serious corruption in the last few years. And for years before that, as well, although they say that in the old days the corruption was institutionalized, so that there were rules about how you could and could not take advantage of your office. In round numbers, in the last six years, 66 officials, employees, and contractors have been found guilty of various sorts of government-related crimes. In a city of only 650,000 people, that puts Memphis in the per-capita lead. With scandals like this, can effective ethics laws be far behind?

Many areas of ethics have little overlap with municipal ethics. But one rather specialized area that I came across has some interesting applications: the ethics of casting love spells. According to an article in about.com, 'the standard position among Pagans is that you should never do spells to make a particular person love you.' With municipal politicians, this should apply also to spells to make everyone love you.

According to an article in today's Louisville Courier-Journal, there is a dispute in Jeffersonville, Kentucky that is worth taking a look at. The mayor has accused the city board of ethics' attorney of having a conflict of interest and is urging that he be fired.

Having politicians on the Queensbury, NY Ethics Board has created a mess.

Who should be in charge of writing and revising municipal ethics codes? Generally, ethics codes are the work of a mayor or a council, or sometimes they both jockey for the position of being seen as more ethical (this is especially true when a council member is considering a run for mayor). Sometimes they're the work of the city attorney, who in any event often does the drafting for his or her boss, who may be the council, the mayor, or the city manager.

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.