City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

April 16, 2014

Local Ethics Reform in Massachusetts

Because Massachusetts has one of the better state ethics programs with jurisdiction over local officials, there are very few local ethics programs, unlike the situation in Florida, California, or Texas, for example. But there have been some recent ethics reform efforts at the local level. Most rece…

Conflicts of Interest April 16, 2014

A One-Way Prohibition on Misuse of Office for Clients

On Monday, Anthony Man of the Sun-Sentinel wrote an excellent analysis of the lobbying elements of Florida Senate bill 846 (a copy of the bill is attached; see below), which was recently passed by the senate unanimously. The law would prohibit local officials from registering as a lobbyist of state…

Resources & Learning April 15, 2014

Spring Reading: "Perlmann's Silence" and Self-Justification

Self-justification is an important element in ethical misconduct, cover-ups, and officials' public denials and explanations of conduct. It aids and abets our blind spots. It is a sign of weakness, anxiety, and fear more than of poor character Self-justification is something each of us engages in. S…

Ethics Commissions & Administration April 15, 2014

Municipal Attorneys Should Stay Out of Ethics Proceedings

When a city or county attorney's office does not represent the ethics commission, should that office play any role in an ethics proceeding? I don't believe it should. But that is what happened recently in Cobb County, GA, according to an article last week in the Marietta Daily Journal. After an eth…

Ethics Commissions & Administration April 14, 2014

Local or State Jurisdiction Over Local Legislators?

Is local government ethics enforcement appropriate for local legislators? This question is currently being asked in Sarasota County, FL and Wyandotte County/Kansas City, KS. A key to whether this is the right question is who is asking the question. In both cases, it is local legislators who have be…

Ethics Commissions & Administration April 11, 2014

Council Ethics Committees

Many local legislative bodies have ethics committees, even where there is an ethics commission. The reason for these self-regulatory committees is that these bodies have their own codes of conduct that go beyond conflicts of interest, and which are enforced, discussed, and amended separate from the…

Resources & Learning April 10, 2014

Spring Reading: Dennis Moberg on Frames of Perception in Organizations

I thought that I had covered all the blind spots that wreak such havoc on local government ethics (see the section in my book Local Government Ethics Programs). But Dennis J. Moberg's essay, "Ethics Blind Spots in Organizations: How Systematic Errors in Person Perception Undermine Moral Agency" (Or…

Ethics Commissions & Administration April 9, 2014

A Court Decision in Florida Validates an Inspector General's Advice

Here's a good-news story from Delray Beach, FL. But first the bad news. According to an op-ed by Rhonda Swan this week in the Sun-Sentinel, in 2012 the Palm Beach County inspector general "warned Delray that extending its contract with Waste Management until 2021 without seeking bids would violate …

Transparency & Disclosure April 8, 2014

Contracting Out Government Work to Prevent Transparency

Here's a good way to get around local government transparency laws. If you want an appointee's activities to remain secret, let him be hired by a private entity, give money to the private entity sufficient to pay his salary, and don't communicate with him via government-owned computers or smartphon…

Ethics Codes & Reform April 7, 2014

The Need for a Taxonomy of Institutional Corruption in Local Government

"The deep problem with the system was a kind of moral inertia. So long as it served the narrow self-interests of everyone inside it, no one on the inside would ever seek to change it, no matter how corrupt or sinister it became — though even to use words like 'corrupt' or 'sinister' made serious pe…

Subscribe to