City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

January 4, 2011

Littering and Government Ethics

Sometimes concepts derived from one area of study, for one purpose, can be valuable in another area of study, for another purpose. This is true of the concepts of "injunctive norm" and "descriptive norm" derived by social psychology professor Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University for use in t…

January 4, 2011

One Commissioner, Two Conflicts, and No Ethics Program in Moore County, NC

One Moore County (NC) commissioner has been faced with two conflict of interest matters in 2010, one of which led him to recently resign from a board. Although the two have nothing to do with each other, they have become politically intertwined which, along with the lack of an ethics program, has p…

Local Government Practice January 3, 2011

Bullheadedness in the Face of Ethics Advice

Bullheadedness is unprofessional, at least in most professions. By "bullheadedness," I mean doing what you want no matter whether a professional tells you not to do it or whether your boss tells you not to do it, even if they tell you why and they are clearly right. One of the professions where bul…

January 2, 2011

Getting the Green Bay Ethics Program into the Super Bowl

The Green Bay Packers football team is going to try to win its game today in order to get to the playoffs and seek its first Super Bowl victory since 1996. Before 1996, the Packers hadn't won a Super Bowl since Vince Lombardi coached them there in 1967. An ethics board meeting is not quite a Super …

December 30, 2010

A Grand Jury Report in Florida Recommends Numerous Ethics Reforms

In February, Florida governor Charlie Crist asked for a grand jury to report on government corruption in Florida. The first interim report was filed yesterday. Its recommendations involve local government as well as state ethics laws. The report begins (p. 3) by characterizing fraud, waste, and abu…

Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play December 30, 2010

The Pay-to-Play Culture of Prince George's County, MD

The recent arrest of the Prince George's County (MD) executive and his wife, who is a new member of the county council, shows how wrong it is to give the county executive and individual council members power over development projects, a topic I've written about with respect to Dallas and Chicago. A…

Conflicts of Interest December 29, 2010

A Local Government Association Board Member's Possible Conflicts

According to an article yesterday on seacoastonline.com, a committee of the Select Board of North Hampton, NH (pop. 4,500) brought to the Select Board its concern about the town administrator dealing with health insurance issues when he was on the board of the state's Local Government Center, a loc…

Ethics Commissions & Administration December 28, 2010

A Council-Controlled Ethics Process Can Be a Real Battle Ground

It is difficult to emphasize too much that council control over the ethics process is not only inappropriate and ineffective, but harmful. The first use of a new ethics ordinance in the aptly named Battle Ground, Washington (pop. 18,000) provides yet another example of the problems that may arise. …

Ethics Codes & Reform December 28, 2010

Opposing Ethics Reform Without Understanding Government Ethics

An editorial in the Lake Forester last week questions whether the county board of Lake County (IL) should be taking a fresh look at the county's ethics program. The call for an ethics committee to review Lake County's ethics ordinances and policies sounds laudable on the surface, but the question h…

Ethics Commissions & Administration December 27, 2010

Centralized vs. Disbursed Ethics Programs

Is discomfort with a centralized ethics program by various parts of a local government something that should stand in the way of creating one? According to an article in the New Haven Register last week, this has been suggested in a discussion by the board of selectmen of Madison, CT, a town about …

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