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City Related

August 21, 2009

Procurement Ethics Discussions in Jacksonville

Jacksonville's ethics commission continues to explore interesting and valuable ideas, according to an article this week in the Jacksonville Financial News & Daily Record. At the first meeting of the commission's new procurement subcommittee, loopholes in the bidding process were discussed. Procurem…
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August 20, 2009

Was There In Fact an Ethics Emergency in Corpus Christi?

In May I wrote a blog post about a so-called ethics emergency in Corpus Christi, declared by a lame-duck council at its last meeting. This so-called emergency was the excuse for pushing through ethics reforms without running them by the city's ethics commission or allowing public discussion. The ne…
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August 19, 2009

Who Does Special Counsel Work For in New Orleans?

"I have counseled many individuals and companies grappling with investigations, but this is the first time I've provided this type of advice to a municipality." When I saw this quotation in the National Law Journal, I thought, "Yeah, that's because municipalities aren't investigated, people are." T…
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August 14, 2009

Government Ethics in the City of Albany, NY: Gifts and a Draft Ethics Code

There's a lot of talk about the lack of government ethics in Albany, New York State's capital, but not much about the state of government ethics in the city of Albany itself. In July, the Albany Times-Union ran a long article on the mayor and the police chief's relationship with the city's largest …
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Conflicts of Interest August 12, 2009

Professional Confidentiality and the Disclosure of Conflicts

John Hazlehurst's observation on the Colorado Springs ethics commission's dismissal of a complaint against the mayor is valuable enough to deserve a separate blog post, rather than a mere update to my original post on this topic. An important issue involved the mayor's insistence that, as an invest…
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August 11, 2009

More Chicago Creativity

Chicago politicians are endlessly creative. A few weeks ago I wrote about an alderman on the zoning committee who pushed for zoning changes to help developers who used his wife as their realtor. It turns out that his boss, William J. P. Banks, head of the zoning committee, is going to have a retire…
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Conflicts of Interest August 2, 2009

When a Conflict Requires Not Withdrawal, But Ending a Controversy

Update below (August 10, 2009): When an official has a conflict of interest, the usual course is to withdraw from any discussion or vote on the matter. But this is not always the case. Sometimes a conflict of interest requires that a responsible official speak up. Such a situation has occurred in H…
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July 31, 2009

Jacksonville Ethics Commission Takes the Lead in Ethics Reform

In Jacksonville-- where City Ethics' founder, Carla Miller, is the Ethics Officer -- the ethics commission is taking the lead in ethics reform, according to an article in the Jacksonville Daily Record. The EC legislative subcommittee is recommending, for presentation to the charter revision commiss…
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July 30, 2009

An Ethics Reform Miscellany

It may be midsummer, but it's still a busy season for local government ethics. Here's how a few local governments are dealing with ethics reform. Palm Beach County commissioners agreed to create an inspector general and ethics commission, according to an article in the Palm Beach Post. The commissi…
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Ethics Commissions & Administration July 28, 2009

The EC Appointment Process: Watchdog or Lapdog?

Update below The only thing worse than stacking ethics commissions with politically active, and apparently loyal, members is refusing to renew the term of a member who has been a vocal advocate of government ethics, in other words, a thorn in the side of officials who do not follow the local govern…
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