City Related | City Ethics

January 14, 2013

Ethics Reform Testimony in D.C. and Tallahassee

It would be really helpful if people could find recommendations for ethics reform all in one place, but this rarely happens. Ethics task forces and ethics commissions that ask for such recommendations from good government groups, officials, and academics rarely make them available to the public onl…

Ethics Codes & Reform January 11, 2013

Ethics Code ≠ Ethics Program

It can never be said too often that the quality of a government ethics code is meaningless. What matters is how the ethics program actually works. Take Bridgeport, CT for example. It is the largest city in Connecticut, with a population of 150,000. It is a poor city in a rich county, and it has had…

Enforcement & Complaints January 5, 2013

Innocence and the Difference Between Criminal and Ethics Enforcement

Is it enough for a local official to be "not guilty"? This is the question that has been raised with respect to a Tamarac, FL city commissioner who was found not guilty of bribery in December, according to a column by Michael Mayo this week in the Sun-Sentinel. Soon after she was found not guilty, …

Ethics Commissions & Administration December 18, 2012

A City Attorney Providing Ethics Advice in a Big City Is Indefensible

Update: December 19, 2012 (see below) I am always amazed at what contraptions people are willing to set up to justify the participation of a city attorney in the ethics program of a large city or county that has sufficient resources to hire an ethics commission staff member or independent ethics of…

Conflicts of Interest December 13, 2012

Dealing with the Conflicts of Winnipeg's Mayor

Canadian mayors don't appear to be having a good time of it lately, ethicswise. Montreal's mayor resigned, Toronto's mayor was dismissed by a judge, and now it looks like the conflict situations of Winnipeg's mayor will be his downfall if he runs for a fourth term, according to a Canadian Broadcast…

December 12, 2012

Ethics Reform in Annapolis

Annapolis is an unusual little city in many ways. It may only have 40,000 residents, but it's the state capital, the county seat, the home of the U.S. Naval Academy, and equidistant, and not far, from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. With respect to government ethics, the county for which it is the c…

Transparency & Disclosure December 10, 2012

The FOI Alternative to Conflict Disclosure

In a quality government ethics program, every official and employee involved in a matter publicly discloses any possible conflict and withdraws from the matter. But what if a city or county does not have a quality government ethics program? How is the public to know whether conflicts are being hand…

Conflicts of Interest December 6, 2012

Cities Indirectly Accepting Funding from Interested Parties

When the economy is booming, local government corruption feeds off the sale of government land, development projects, and construction contracts. When the economy is doing poorly, there is usually less money floating around to fund corruption. But in bad times, local governments are willing to acce…

December 3, 2012

Judicial Dismissal of Toronto's Mayor

Between the American Thanksgiving holiday and throwing out my back so that I couldn't sit at my computer, I missed one of the most fascinating stories of the year: a judicial dismissal of Toronto's mayor for a conflict of interest violation. The conflict situation was minor, but the way the mayor …

Ethics Codes & Reform November 20, 2012

Second Round of Chicago Ethics Reforms IV - The Failures

In one of my blog posts on the ethics task force's second report, I identified areas that the ethics task force ignored. The first was the low limits on fines. The mayor, in his recommendations, did not recommend increasing them. The second was the failure to include independent ("sister") agencies…

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