City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

Conflicts of Interest November 9, 2009

The Problem with Gifts to City via Elected Officials

In past blog posts, I have focused on the perjury charges against Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon that relate to her failure to disclose gifts from a developer who was seeking tax breaks. But today, Dixon goes on trial for theft involving gift cards allegedly given to the office of the city council pr…

Conflicts of Interest November 5, 2009

Government Ethics Is Not About Character, But About Making Decisions in a Professional Manner

One thing I've failed to do in this blog is sufficiently emphasize that making ethical decisions in government is not primarily about being a good, ethical person, as most people seem to think. Essentially, it is the same as making other decisions. As I recently wrote, "with effective training, in…

November 5, 2009

Gifts from National and State Associations

Many of the most difficult situations in government ethics involve relationships that are not direct. For example, situations where the company that provides a benefit does not do business with the local government, but is owned by someone who owns another company that does do business with or have…

Ethics Commissions & Administration November 4, 2009

Deception About Ethics Commission Approval and Another Problem with Ethics Self-Regulation

This week saw the opening of the trial of former New York state senate majority leader Joseph Bruno for honest services fraud. According to the assistant U.S. attorney presenting the case, as quoted in the Albany Times-Union, although a criminal trial, "this case is about conflicts of interest. It'…

November 3, 2009

Anti-Ethical Electioneering

It's Election Day 2009, so what better topic than a particularly slimy instance of negative campaigning that attacks a candidate for seeking an advisory opinion from the local ethics board, and actually following it. According to an article on kcrg.com this Sunday, a candidate's flier said that his…

November 3, 2009

Pension Board Reform in California

While on the subject of pension boards in California, it's worth mentioning a new California bill, Bill 1584, signed into law on October 18. It is an amendment to the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 (Section 22212.5 of the Education Code, Sections 20098 and 31528 of the Government Code, wit…

Local Government Practice November 2, 2009

Local Government Employees on Local Government Pension Boards - An Important Court Case in California

It's been over three years since I wrote about the conflict situation of San Diego's pension board. Its members were selected by the city government labor unions and by the city, and they worked for the city. When an increase in their retirement benefits was explicitly tied to their approval of a r…

October 31, 2009

Dallas Ethics Reform Proposals to Go to Vote November 9

Dallas council members' control over development in their districts led earlier this month to the conviction of one council member and four associates for extortion. Now the Dallas mayor, Tom Leppert, is effectively forcing the hand of the city council to enact ethics reforms to provide more transp…

Enforcement & Complaints October 30, 2009

Executive Orders on Ethics Are Good, Enforcement Is Better

According to an article in this week's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a rule prohibiting Georgia state employees from accepting gifts over $25 is not being enforced. At all. How does the paper know these gifts are being made? Because lobbyists have to disclose their spending on state employees as we…

October 30, 2009

Misuse of the Baltimore City Foundation

Update: November 11, 2009 (see below) Is there any worse way to skirt government ethics rules and misuse public money and position than via a charitable organization? And yet it happens again and again. This time it happened in Baltimore, according to the results of an extensive investigation by th…

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