City Related | City Ethics

March 9, 2007

Some Weak Defenses of Conflicts in the News This Week

Understatement: After one county district attorney recused himself from prosecuting the man who hired him for his job, the neighboring county district attorney accepted the case, despite the fact that he leased office space and had accepted a thousand-dollar campaign contribution from the suspect's…

Ethics Codes & Reform March 8, 2007

Logical Fallacies I: The Ad Hominem Attack

It is difficult to be an ethical politician or administrator, or even a citizen, without a basic understanding of logic. It is also difficult to appreciate others' unethical conduct without a basic understanding of logic. By logic I do not mean the opposite of irrationality, but rather critical thi…

Conflicts of Interest March 6, 2007

Conflicting Public Service Obligations

My blog entries must often seem like attacks on business interests. One reason is that conflicts are usually about personal financial interests conflicting with a government official's obligations to the public, and our democratic values require that the official's fiduciary obligations take preced…

Conflicts of Interest March 6, 2007

Proximity Rules

Some towns have proximity rules, that is, rules that require officials to recuse themselves from any matter dealing with property within a certain distance of property they own or rent. But it is hard to have a set number of feet or yards. A distance appropriate to an urban environment is very diff…

Enforcement & Complaints March 5, 2007

Ethics Recidivism After Getting Off Easy

You don't hear too much about recidivism in the municipal ethics world. One reason may be that it happens, but often at different levels, as a politician moves up the ladder. Take Congressional Representative Gary Miller, for instance. According to a recent article in The Hill, he got his start whe…

Conflicts of Interest March 4, 2007

Hiding Conflicts Until the Last Second

It is very common for public servants to say (or others to say for them) that they did not feel they had a true conflict or did not understand the law. And often this is true. But why so often do those same people often try to hide the fact that they did not disclose their conflict (or the extent o…

March 3, 2007

An Occasion for Compassion and Respect

The big story this week from Largo (not Key Largo, but a West Coast town), Florida has a little bit of everything in it. I don't think any ethics code would deal with what occurred, but the situation certainly raises a number of important ethical issues in a municipal government context. The story …

Conflicts of Interest February 22, 2007

City Attorney's Advice re Conflicts of Interest: A New California Supreme Court Decision

The Supreme Court of California has handed down a decision that could have a significant impact on conflicts of interest cases. In The People v. Chacon, S125236 (February 8, 2007), the court found that Chacon, a former council member charged with a conflict of interest, could not use the defense th…

Transparency & Disclosure February 22, 2007

Ethics Transparency

Transparency is one of the most important elements of government ethics. And yet government ethics itself is often kept secret. Respect for the privacy of those investigated is given preference over the rights of residents to know what is going on. Ethics commissions often do not file annual report…

Local Government Practice February 16, 2007

A Course in Running for Local Office

One of the best ways to create a more ethical environment in local government is to have more people run for office. The more people who run for office, the more pressure is put on the closed world that many local governments preserve. This closed world is preserved through the lack of interest not…

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