City Related

Conflicts of Interest April 22, 2010

Fishing for Conflicts

Update: April 29, 2010 (see below) The idea of a possible conflict of interest should not be an excuse for a fishing expedition to find relationships between local government legislators and people or contracts they vote on. This appears to be what is happening in Crossville, a town of 9,000 in eas…
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Conflicts of Interest April 19, 2010

Making a Gray Area Black and White

Gray areas in local government ethics don't necessarily have to be gray areas. According to an article last week in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a council member whose brother is a lieutenant in the city jail has been very vocal in opposing a plan to lease the jail to the county in which Atlan…
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April 14, 2010

A Legislative IG for Chicago?

Back in Chicago, where in February the mayor called for the inspector general (appointed by the mayor) to have jurisdiction over the city council (see my blog post), the council is now moving toward a council-wide vote on its own inspector general. In my blog post, I suggested that one IG be appoin…
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Ethics Codes & Reform April 12, 2010

Government Ethics As a Double-Edged Sword

In the hands of politicians, government ethics can be wielded as a double-edged sword, as can be seen in recent events in Mandeville (LA), a city of 12,000 just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. According to an article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, in October 2009 the city's mayor pl…
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Ethics Codes & Reform April 7, 2010

What's Wrong with This Picture?

The mayor of a city of 46,000 people announces that the city would change its policy requiring annexation to obtain water and sewer service, and then negotiates an agreement with a developer to provide him with utilities. In the middle of the negotiations, the developer gives the mayor's campaign a…
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Enforcement & Complaints April 6, 2010

Ethics Charges as a Beginning

Ethics charges are often not the end, but rather the beginning of a process to improve government ethics. Take a recent instance in Los Angeles. According to a City News Service article last week, a construction director for the Los Angeles Unified School District "was charged with nine felony coun…
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Local Government Practice March 31, 2010

Vive Les Differences!

One of the biggest differences between unethical conduct and criminal conduct by government officials is the matter of proving intent. For example, a bribe is nothing more than a gift to a government official where it has been proven that the official intentionally took a gift in return for certain…
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