Conflicts of Interest

An article on the MinnPost site this week brought to my attention a report done by the Minneapolis Ethical Practices Board (EPB) on conflicts of interest involving development-related boards (planning, zoning, preservation) in Minneapolis and in other cities (a copy of the report is attached; see b…

The death of Robert Bork is a good time to learn from the biggest mistake in his life, one that may have cost him a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. It involved his failure to deal responsibly with a superior's conflict of interest, and his own, since his superior forced his conflict situation onto …

No one wants a political government ethics program, and yet the people who most often worry out loud that it will be political want it to be political. This apparent paradox can be explained by looking at the various meanings of the word "political." Which of these meanings is most important to a g…

Canadian mayors don't appear to be having a good time of it lately, ethicswise. Montreal's mayor resigned, Toronto's mayor was dismissed by a judge, and now it looks like the conflict situations of Winnipeg's mayor will be his downfall if he runs for a fourth term, according to a Canadian Broadcast…

When the economy is booming, local government corruption feeds off the sale of government land, development projects, and construction contracts. When the economy is doing poorly, there is usually less money floating around to fund corruption. But in bad times, local governments are willing to acce…

News from British Columbia provides strong evidence of how difficult it is for anyone to deal with his own conflict situation, even a government ethics professional. No one should think that it is easy for someone to see an appearance of impropriety relating to himself or to respond to a conflict a…

A conflict situation in Albuquerque presents an excellent opportunity to consider just what it is about conflicts that makes them problematic. According to an article in the Albuquerque Journal on Saturday, the chair of Albuquerque's Police Oversight Commission also directs the auxiliary of the loc…

With the frequent confusion of person and office, sometimes it's not that easy to tell the difference between a gift to a local government agency and a gift to its director. This confusion can open an agency director to accusations of ethical misconduct. This is what has happened in Baltimore. Acco…

A front-page article in today's New York Times looks on a conflict situation that is usually ignored:  the unpaid adviser who effectively sells her inside, often confidential information to her clients. She is not technically a lobbyist, because her communications with officials are not intended to…

I recently wrote a blog post about a situation where a citizen asked an ethics commission for ethics advice when council members failed to do so and, despite the corporation counsel's suggestion that it provide the advice, the ethics commission refused to provide it. In this post, I would like to c…