City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

March 18, 2011

Prince George's County (MD) Ethics Reforms Good, But Incomplete

Update: March 19, 2011 (see below) Last December I wrote a long blog post about the pay-to-play culture of Prince George's County, Maryland. The new county executive and the county's state representatives appear to have been working hard to make changes to end this pay-to-play culture, although you…

Ethics Codes & Reform March 17, 2011

Nonviolence and Government Ethics IV – Moral Courage

In his book The Search for a Nonviolent Future, Michael N. Nagler wrote, "Anyone who plucks up the courage to offer an opponent a way out of their conflict can find herself or himself wielding an unexpected power." You may need to read this sentence over a few times before it completely sinks in. T…

Conflicts of Interest March 17, 2011

Do Public Service Unions Share the Obligations of Their Members?

On Sunday, the New York Times ran an article based on a long-term investigation of group homes for the developmentally disabled in New York state. It found that "in hundreds of cases reviewed by The Times, employees who sexually abused, beat or taunted residents were rarely fired, even after repeat…

Resources & Learning March 16, 2011

Nonviolence and Government Ethics III – Thinking Outside the Box

Another way in which violence and unethical conduct are similar is the way they are handled by the news media. Just as violence is generally discussed in terms of separate battles and wars, day by day, unethical conduct is discussed in terms of separate scandals and individuals, day by day. And une…

March 15, 2011

A Miscellany

Conning Citizens Car towing is one of the biggest temptations in local government. A police officer goes to the scene of an accident, and one or more drivers needs to have their cars towed. The drivers are injured or at least in shock, and rarely thinking straight. The officer has been offered so m…

Local Government Practice March 15, 2011

Nonviolence and Government Ethics II – Teamwork and Leading By Example

Nonviolence, as Michael N. Nagler presents it in his book The Search for a Nonviolent Future, is not just a way of standing up to dictators, as in Egypt, or trying to change discriminatory laws, as in the civil rights movement. Nonviolence also includes what Gandhi referred to a Constructive Progra…

Local Government Practice March 14, 2011

Nonviolence and Government Ethics I – Disrespect

Faida Hamdy was a municipal inspector in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. She was not a very respectful municipal official. So when she found that a young fruit vendor did not have a license, she slapped him. She humiliated him in front of others. The fruit vendor set himself on fire, and this set the Arab wo…

March 10, 2011

A Rotten Crop of Oranges in Tamarac, Florida

I talk a lot about poor ethics environments, probably the single most important element in unethical conduct. But since loyalty is the strongest force in such environments, a great deal of work is done to hide the existence of poor ethics environments. After unethical conduct is discovered, it is r…

Conflicts of Interest March 9, 2011

Determining Whether Something Paid For Has Been Discounted and Is Therefore a Gift

My last blog post raised an interesting question. When an annual financial disclosure form (or, in some jurisdictions a special declaration of gifts received) requires the disclosure of all gifts from restricted sources, what are the expectations of an official who pays rent to a restricted source?…

Conflicts of Interest March 8, 2011

Confidentiality After an Official's Resignation

It is generally agreed that it is best to preserve an ethics commission's jurisdiction over officials and employees after they quit or leave office. There are two reasons for this. One, to prevent them from escaping enforcement by quitting or leaving office. This is especially important because it …

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