City Related | City Ethics

June 25, 2008

Favoring Friends and Family Catches Up to Baltimore's Mayor

Two years after allegations made by the Baltimore Sun, two years after state prosecutors began an investigation, a year and a half after being appointed mayor (after being city council president), and six months after being elected mayor, Baltimore's Sheila Dixon's alleged favoring of friends and f…

Ethics Commissions & Administration June 25, 2008

Starving Ethics Commissions of Resources - The Situation in Oklahoma

Money is not only the root of much of the evil in government ethics, it is also the lifeblood of government ethics. Without money, ethics commissions, at least in cities and states, as opposed to towns, cannot do their job. Do something the legislative body doesn't like and it has a good way to get…

Enforcement & Complaints June 24, 2008

Superior Handling of a Conflict Matter

Too many of my blog entries look at instances where things did not go right. One reason is that when things do go right, no one talks about them. Another reason is that so often ethics problems are not handled very well. So it's nice to read about the proper handling of a conflict situation in Supe…

Conflicts of Interest June 23, 2008

The Special Responsibilities of Prosecutors -- and Other Local Government Attorneys

An article on the front page of today's New York Times presents us with an opportunity to focus on the special ethical responsibilities of prosecutors, and other local government attorneys. An assistant district attorney in Manhattan, Daniel Bibb, was asked to reinvestigate a murder where the convi…

Enforcement & Complaints June 22, 2008

Acknowledging Ethics Violations in Settlements

Should an agreement between an ethics commission and a respondent, which ends an ethics proceeding, include an acknowledgment by the respondent that he violated the ethics law? According to an article in yesterday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee thinks not. The A…

Conflicts of Interest June 20, 2008

Registrars of Voters and Their Conflicts

If you were going to set up a local election system devoted to fairness and to voters, how would you have registrars of voters selected? Would you have them appointed or elected? Would you have them be party members or nonpartisan? Click here to read the rest of this blog entry. Let's start with el…

Ethics Codes & Reform June 18, 2008

The Benefits of Hyperlinking Ethics Codes, and the Dependency of Children

According to an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer, a county commissioner in Ohio voted on a contract that went to her non-dependent son, and she is being investigated by the Ohio Ethics Commission. Let me say first that I think it's outrageous for a public official to vote on a contract that's goi…

Enforcement & Complaints June 17, 2008

Pension Forfeiture

My state, Connecticut, has just added itself to the at least 14 states that provide for public official pension forfeiture. Like some of the other states, its new law covers municipal officials. Pension forfeiture is the capital punishment of government ethics. It makes legislators look like they …

Conflicts of Interest June 12, 2008

Pension Fund Boards and Conflicts of Interest

Who should be on a local government pension board? Should conflicts of interest be taken into account? These two questions are closely interrelated, because the common answer seems to be that those with the greatest conflict are also the most appropriate members. There are two values at odds here: …

Transparency & Disclosure June 11, 2008

Blogging by Local Government Officials - A New Kind of Transparency

Once again, California is in the vanguard. This time, it's blogs by mayors, city managers, and other local government officials (for list, click here; not all of these are government officials' blogs, but many are and it's not hard to tell them apart). This is a risky approach to transparency, but…

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