County Related

Here's an election story with a conflict of interest angle. In Crescent City, California (pop. 7,500) on the beautiful California coast up near the Oregon border, the little city's former finance director is running for clerk.

According to articles in the Daily Triplicate, the finance director was fired a little more than a year ago, either (depending on whom you ask) because she had...

According to an article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune this week, the lame-duck mayor of Northfield, MN, home of Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges, has been charged with five counts of misconduct by a public official and two counts of conflict of interest under the town's ethics code (there is no...

The federal government's trust deficit today is in worse shape than our federal budget and current account deficits. Government leaders better jump on the government ethics bandwagon quick, or there could be a serious trust crisis. Here's the latest new from the Harris Polls:

• Four in five adult Americans agree that the federal government needs better moral leadership, with 59
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The big news this week on the government ethics front is Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens' conviction on seven counts of making false statements on financial disclosure forms, regarding home renovations paid for by an oil executive.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. I've already written about the way that Sen. Stevens, to an unusual extent, identified himself with his constituents and abused his power to unfairly...

Long Island (NY) Railroad (LIRR) retirees are many times more likely to be on disability than other rail workers, and the New York Times has been focusing on this story (click here for a page of articles and information). Needless to say, according to an article in...

"As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it? --William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, 1871

see update below

Another of Boss Tweed's famous quotations is, "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." His and other city bosses' way of controlling politics through parties led to the reform movements of the progressive era, first to the idea of a strong mayor, and then to the idea of nonpartisan town managers.
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