City Related

Good news from Stamford. According to an article in yesterday's Stamford Advocate and another article that just appeared online two hours ago, the board of ethics reached a settlement with the chair of the board of finance, in which they agreed to withdraw all ethics complaints and the federal suit filed by the finance chair.

Oklahoma's Open Meeting Act, which applies to local governments, ends with an unusual provision. That provision is the only provision in the act that deals with enforcement. It says that a willful violation of a provision is a misdemeanor, and that someone guilty of a violation may be fined up to $500 and/or imprisoned in a county jail for up to one year.

It is worth noting that the respondent member of the Stamford board of finance in the matter covered in the preceding blog post raised both a legislative immunity and a First Amendment free speech defense in his federal court complaint unsuccessfully seeking an injunction against his ethics proceeding.

There are times when withdrawing from a vote is in fact not a responsible act, but rather an act in one's own self-interest. In such a case, a responsible official should participate and do what is in the public interest.

According to an article in Friday's San Bernardino Sun, a San Bernardino city council member accused of a conflict of interest resigned. He owned a towing company whose major source of income is a contract with the city. The contract was made before he joined the council.

Yes, boys and girls, it's time for another episode of every government ethics lover's favorite tale, Vernon and the Dragons. In the last episode, back in November, the dragon known as Los Angeles County was considering a proposal to require the city of Vernon to competitively bid housing for the city, which houses very few people, and mostly friends of government insiders (it used to be mostly city employees).

Update: February 10, 2011 (see below)

Last month, I wrote about how the Green Bay ethics board hadn't met much more than the Packers had won Super Bowls. Well, now that the Packers have won another, it's time for the ethics board to meet again (the last time it met was in 1999).

According to an article in The Record this week, a Clifton, New Jersey council member is being accused of dealing irresponsibly with a conflict by participating in a discussion about, although not voting on, the reappointment of two members of the city's zoning board. The conflict is an unusual one.

In my recent blog posts about Gwinnett County, especially the first, I spoke about how the problem of not following formal processes is a serious government ethics problem, but is often not covered by ethics codes.