City Related

My first experience with municipal politics in New Jersey, where I lived for nine years before moving to Connecticut, was accompanying some neighbors to a council meeting, because a couple of them wanted to speak about a change in zoning that affected the street we lived on. A neighbor asked the ma…

Yesterday in a dramatic speech to the City's Council, Mayor Peyton announced a series of sweeping ethics reforms, foremost of which was his appointment of Carla Miller as the City's Ethics Officer - in his words: "The establishment of a high-level, in-house ethics officer for the city of Jacksonvil…

Today's guilty plea by New Orleans' City Council vice president, Oliver Thomas, is on its face about the acceptance of a bribe. But behind that bribe is a serious conflict of interest. Not only was Thomas the council vice president and longest-serving council member, but he was also a member of the…

Immigration is a new issue for municipalities. Or is it? Last week, a federal judge struck down ordinances passed in Hazleton, PA that would harshly punish undocumented immigrants who tried to live or work there, as well as employers and landlords who provided them homes or jobs. Also last week, Ne…

In common discussions of municipal ethics, one principal type of municipal employee is rarely mentioned: the teacher. Unless a teacher is, say, a school board member, he or she is rarely in a position to have a conflict of interest. Right? Click here to read the rest of this blog entry. An article …