City Related | City Ethics

Conflicts of Interest January 28, 2009

Gifts to Local Governments - Two Very Different Examples

Gifts to local governments have become an issue recently in Sacramento, CA and Richland Hills, TX. I wrote about various aspects of this issue over two years ago. It's time to raise it with respect to concrete examples. Basically, gifts to local governments by businesses and individuals with a busi…

January 24, 2009

How to Unsettle a Settlement Agreement

What happens if an ethics commission enters into a settlement agreement in which an official admits to certain conduct in violation of the jurisdiction's ethics code, and then the official goes out into the world and says he did nothing wrong, but felt it was best for everyone to pay the fine and m…

January 20, 2009

City Attorney Investigates Memphis Mayor for Possible Ethics Violation

As I wrote in a blog entry nearly two years ago, Memphis has broken records in terms of convicted public officials. But its mayor of seventeen years, Willie Herenton, has stood above it all. At least until now. One result of the many convictions in Memphis was a new ethics ordinance in 2007 (not di…

January 18, 2009

Hostile Takeovers in the Municipal World

When I wrote about the "industrial city" of Vernon, California a year ago, I didn't pay attention to a story that would, if it were true (allegations have been made but, as far as I know, not proven), make for a great movie, at least as dramatic as Chinatown, about municipal corruption in Southern …

January 16, 2009

Council Accounts - Conflicts and a Lack of Transparency

A year ago, I wrote about New York City Council's earmark funds and the ways they were being abused. Atlanta's council members have a different sort of fund, not intended to help their constituents, but intended to help themselves. They too are open to abuse and, according to an article in yesterda…

Ethics Codes & Reform January 16, 2009

Self-Serving Ethics

See update below Ethics is popular in Illinois right now, so popular that two mayoral candidates in the Village of Niles, a northwest suburb of Chicago (pop. 30,000), are putting it at the center of their campaigns. But it's not ethics as most of us like to think of it. This love of ethics doesn't …

January 15, 2009

A D.C. Loan Officer's Possible Conflicts of Interest

Are loans to businesses that do business with a city sufficient to create a conflict of interest? This is the question that has been batted around recently in Washington, D.C., according to an article in today's Washington Post. A bank vice president is chair of a board that oversees D.C.'s charter…

January 14, 2009

New Year's Resolutions in Jacksonville

The new year is a good time for ethics commissions and officers to look ahead to 2009 and set goals and priorities. According to an article in today's Jacksonville Daily Record, this is exactly what the Jacksonville (FL) ethics commission did at its first meeting of the new year. As did the city's …

January 13, 2009

Transition Team Conflicts in Sacramento

Sacramento recently had an interesting situation, which set off accusations of conflicts of interest. According to an article in the Sacramento Bee, the newly-elected weak mayor came into office with a volunteer transition team, consisting primarily of people who have business with the city or repr…

Conflicts of Interest January 12, 2009

Narrow and Vague Ethics Code Definitions of "Doing Business"

The Baltimore mayor's attorney has, only days after his client was indicted, given a course to drafters of local government ethics codes on how not to define "doing business" with a local government. The mayor's attorney, in a press conference, pointed out that Section 2-5 of the Baltimore Ethics C…

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