County Related

I recommend an essay by Donald Menzel from the October issue of PM, the magazine of the International City-County Management Association (ICMA), entitled "Strengthening Ethical Governance in Local Governments." Menzel is a former president of the American Society for Public Administration, author of Ethics Management for Public Administrators: Building Organizations of Integrity, and co-editor of ...

I hate to harp so often on the problem of ethics matters being handled by criminal authorities, but when I read an article in the Nogales (AZ) International that begins as follows, I get angry.

While there was “ample evidence of incompetence,” it took more than two years for Nils Urman, former Santa Cruz County Commerce and Economic Development Director, to...

Sacramento recently had an interesting situation, which set off accusations of conflicts of interest. According to an article in the Sacramento Bee, the newly-elected weak mayor came into office with a volunteer transition team, consisting primarily of people who have business with the city or represent people and entities that have business with the city.

The Baltimore mayor's attorney has, only days after his client was indicted, given a course to drafters of local government ethics codes on how not to define "doing business" with a local government.

When the entire ethics commission of a major county resigns, something is seriously wrong. This is what recently happened in Jackson County, MO, home of Kansas City and Independence.

Last June, I wrote about the state prosecutor's investigation of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, which was being taken before a grand jury. I focused on a series of ethical problems Mayor Dixon had in her pre-mayoral days and how they built toward these more serious alleged offenses. A little more than six months later, the grand jury has brought...