City Related

Referendum Requires Ethics Training and Increases Penalties
I learned at the COGEL conference last week that a referendum passed in New York City last month requires all city officials and employees to receive conflict of interest training. The Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) does provide training, but officials and employees are not required to take it. This change is extremely valuable.

If a council member's law firm wants to bid on being the local government's attorney, a contract that is approved by the council, what is the responsible way to handle the matter?

Here are three cases from New York City that involve relations between superiors and subordinates, one of the most important aspects of local government ethics. What is especially interesting is that two of these cases involve co-opting, in one case of subordinates, in the other of vendors. These cases were included in COGEL's ethics update last week.

Co-opting Subordinates

Yet another court decision discussed at the COGEL conference placed First Amendment free speech rights far above the obligations of a government official, employing a strict scrutiny approach where a simple due process (for statutory vagueness) approach would have been sufficient.

"You say that [we are] corrupt and I'll jump over this table and punch you out." Those are the words of Philadelphia city commissioner Margaret Tartaglione, according to an article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer. She was upset by a journalist's questions regarding the handling of elections in Philadelphia.

A Municipal Bid Rigging Scheme Comes to Light
According to an article in the New York Times this week, Banc of America Securities (which recently merged with Merrill Lynch) agreed to pay the SEC and others $137 million to settle charges related to a municipal bond bid-rigging scheme. For those who think competitive bidding rules are enough, this case should make you think otherwise.

According to an Associated Press article yesterday, a New York City school principal "didn't think there was a conflict of interest because there was no exchange of money."

Sensational local government ethics news, such as scandals, is online in minutes. Ordinary local government ethics news, such as the appointment of a new executive director or general counsel, is covered more slowly, if at all.

In a recent blog post, I wrote about how the mayor's selection for New York City schools chancellor needed to get a waiver from the state department of education because she lacked an educational background, and that she resigned corporate board positions to make it clear she was serious about taking the job, even though there were, in some cases, no clear conflict.

Indefinite conflicts can cause a lot of problems for officials. They see them as not yet ripe, not something they should have to deal with yet. But others see them as looming in the future, and want to know how the official plans to deal with them. One such indefinite conflict is the subject of controversy in Tampa, where a council candidate is the executive director of a nonprofit organization that has a large contract with the city to build affordable apartments. This sort of indefinite conflict comes up a lot.