City Related

Last December, I listed the major recommendations of Philadelphia's Task Force on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform in its 58-page report.

New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has an ongoing problem confusing his job as mayor, his ownership of a big media company, and his philanthropic activities. One of the symptoms of this problem is the unusual revolving door he provides for some of his closest advisers.

Governors Aren't Always Governors
The involvement of New York governor David Paterson in his aide's domestic abuse matter gets right to the heart of government ethics.

According to an article in today's New York Times, Paterson told a state employee and mutual friend of his and the domestic abuse victim's, “Tell her the governor wants her to make this go away."

Update: March 4, 2010
I am placing this update up front because my consideration of the Committee of Seventy's criticism of the Philadelphia ethics board assumed the truth of the Committee's portrayal of the city's retirement law. Sadly, it turns out that it misrepresented the law, saying that the ethics board was unethically employing a loophole, when the ethics board's rehiring of its general counsel is expressly legal according to the retirement law.

I recently noted Oakland, CA's odd nepotism ordinance. Well, its Public Ethics Commission is also odd, and worthy of a look.

New York City has had more problems with council earmarks than Washington, D.C. (see recent blog post on D.C.), and now the city's ombudsman has come up with a different approach, an approach from outside the council, in fact, from someone with no actual jurisdiction over the council. His plan shows that ethics officers or bodies can make a difference even where they have no actual jurisdiction.

Especially in small towns, bankers often have business relationships with many people and, therefore, do not make the best board and commission members on account of the many conflicts they have or, more frequently, the appearance of impropriety.

Special Counsel Robert S. Bennett's report on the District of Columbia council's earmark grants and personal services contracts was made public yesterday by the Washington City Paper.

Your big brother is a powerful member of city council, and you're just a deputy city clerk. There's got to be more than this! So you retire, take your pension of $68,000, and run for state representative, with all the support your brother and his friends can provide, adding another $86,000 in salary and the prospect of a second government pension. Not bad.

It's only been six weeks since I wrote about a campaign finance suit in San Diego, filed by the Republican Party of San Diego County, a former City Council candidate, a pro-business group, a union PAC, and a pollster. Yesterday the federal district court handed down an important split decision on the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction.