City Related

Election officials. Who in a democracy should be more above suspicion than election officials?

At the place where I vote, the line that is the required number of feet from the voting area is traditionally right along the near side of the sidewalk that runs along the edge of the school parking lot. When candidates, their supporters, and others come to hand out their sheets, hold their signs, and talk to voters, they stand on that sidewalk.

Immigration is a new issue for municipalities. Or is it?

What a nice thing to wake up to: reading in the newspaper that at least some American institutions are using words like 'transparency' and 'accountability' as if they really meant it.

In common discussions of municipal ethics, one principal type of municipal employee is rarely mentioned: the teacher. Unless a teacher is, say, a school board member, he or she is rarely in a position to have a conflict of interest. Right?

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/319">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>

Gaining and retaining the public's trust in government is the principal reason given for passing ethics codes. But there is little talk beyond this about the concept of trust.

Whenever someone dies in a village in Bangladesh, Gonoshasthaya Kendra, a health charity, holds a public post-mortem, according to an article in the July 7, 2007 issue of the <i>Economist</i>. 'The aim is not to blame or indict <i>per se</i>'bare-knuckled confrontation would alienate the government'but to remind public servants that someone is watching them, and that the negligent will be named and shamed.'

According to <a href="http://www.politicsnj.com/files/James-RileyIndictment0712.pdf">a 33-count indictment</a> filed yesterday by the United States Attorney for New Jersey, former Newark, NJ mayor Sharpe James appears to have been just another crooked urban mayor out to help himself and his friends to the sort of perks that aren't supposed to come with public service: trips, tickets, cruises, the usual.

An excellent op-ed column by Stanley Fish in the July 14 New York <i>Times</i> focuses on a very difficult ethical problem in municipal government: affirmative action. The recently decided Supreme Court decision, <a href="http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-908.pdf">Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al (No.

Many municipal ethics codes have a provision similar to this one:

<b>Contingent Fees</b>
No official or employee may retain, or be retained by, anyone to solicit or secure a contract with the town upon an agreement or understanding that includes a commission, percentage, brokerage, or contingent fee, except with respect to attorneys hired to represent the town on a common contingency fee basis.

According to a May 24, 2007 New York <i>Times</i> editorial, the Commerce Department inspector general, charged with protecting whistle-blowers, took vengeance on two subordinates who questioned his expense accounts. He reassigned his top deputy and his counsel to peripheral jobs, when they refused to sign off on expensive trips and office renovations. This happened at the federal level, but it is important to show how fragile whistle-blowing is.