City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

December 12, 2012

Ethics Reform in Annapolis

Annapolis is an unusual little city in many ways. It may only have 40,000 residents, but it's the state capital, the county seat, the home of the U.S. Naval Academy, and equidistant, and not far, from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. With respect to government ethics, the county for which it is the c…

Transparency & Disclosure December 10, 2012

The FOI Alternative to Conflict Disclosure

In a quality government ethics program, every official and employee involved in a matter publicly discloses any possible conflict and withdraws from the matter. But what if a city or county does not have a quality government ethics program? How is the public to know whether conflicts are being hand…

Ethics Commissions & Administration December 7, 2012

A New Report on the Ethics Programs of Florida Counties

On November 29, Florida State University’s LeRoy Collins Institute and the new good government group Integrity Florida released a report entitled "Florida Counties Bridge the Ethics Policy Gap", which analyzes the results of a survey of government ethics programs and reforms in 45 of Florida’s 67 c…

Conflicts of Interest December 6, 2012

Cities Indirectly Accepting Funding from Interested Parties

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…

Enforcement & Complaints December 6, 2012

Intimidation in the Complaint Process

An eye-opening report was published this week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. The report was based on a survey of all the state's police departments regarding the filing of complaints. Although complaints filed by the public against police officers rarely involve conflicts of …

Ethics Commissions & Administration December 5, 2012

An Excellent Report Recommending an Ethics Program for a Regional Transit Authority

In October, I wrote a blog post about a report commissioned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), based on an investigation of an ethics issue involving a Washington, D.C. council member and transit authority board member. The focus of my post was on the conflicted situatio…

December 4, 2012

Taking Responsibility for COGEL Awards

Yesterday, at the annual conference of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL), the only association of state and local government ethics professionals, Judge Anthony Wilhoit was given the COGEL Award, which is given annually to someone who has "made a significant, demonstrable, and positiv…

December 3, 2012

Judicial Dismissal of Toronto's Mayor

Between the American Thanksgiving holiday and throwing out my back so that I couldn't sit at my computer, I missed one of the most fascinating stories of the year: a judicial dismissal of Toronto's mayor for a conflict of interest violation. The conflict situation was minor, but the way the mayor …

Ethics Codes & Reform November 20, 2012

Second Round of Chicago Ethics Reforms IV - The Failures

In one of my blog posts on the ethics task force's second report, I identified areas that the ethics task force ignored. The first was the low limits on fines. The mayor, in his recommendations, did not recommend increasing them. The second was the failure to include independent ("sister") agencies…

Ethics Codes & Reform November 19, 2012

Second Round of Chicago Ethics Reforms III - Independence and Confidentiality

Ethics program independence is, as far as I'm concerned, the single most important issue in ethics reform. Nothing gains the public's trust as much as an ethics program that is independent from the officials over whom it has jurisdiction. It is clear from the second report of the Chicago Ethics Ref…

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