City Related | City Ethics

Conflicts of Interest September 13, 2013

The Timing and Content of Withdrawal from Participation

Timing is everything. That is the principal lesson to be learned from a conflict situation in West Palm Beach, FL. According to articles in the Palm Beach Post and on the WLRN website, the director of the city's community redevelopment agency (CRA) resigned because her company intended to bid on a …

Conflicts of Interest September 10, 2013

When One Side Might Be Harmed by a Conflict, So Might the Other

It's sad that it took the Appellate Division of New York state's Supreme Court (not the top court in the state) to disqualify a town attorney from a case when that attorney's firm had represented the opposing party in a matter substantially related to the case. Government ethics tends to focus on o…

September 7, 2013

A New D.C. Ethics Reform Bill

On April 17, the District of Columbia ethics board filed recommendations for ethics reform with the council (see my blog post on the recommendations). Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie has introduced a bill that includes some of these recommendations (attached; see below). On October 7, a hearing o…

Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play September 4, 2013

Local Public Financing Programs Make Elections More Local

When people write about public campaign financing programs, they tend to focus on participation percentages and the size of the campaign contributions. But what is most interesting about the analysis done by the New Haven Independent of campaign contributions given to mayoral candidates participati…

Ethics Commissions & Administration September 3, 2013

An Advisory Opinion Concerning Constituent Services

On August 29, the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability issued an advisory opinion on the important and far too overlooked topic of constituent services (attached; see below). The issuing of advisory opinions that cover more than a very specific set of facts, what I call "general advis…

Ethics Codes & Reform August 30, 2013

Should the Josephson Institute's Principles of Public Ethics Be Enforceable Rules?

Should the Josephson Institute's Five Principles of Public Ethics be enforceable by a local government? And if not, why not? Article I of Allen Park, MI's charter consists of the five Josephson Institute principles, plus one more about "congeniality and productivity." Here are the five Josephson pr…

Ethics Codes & Reform August 7, 2013

It's Gray Between the Cracks

Gifts to a local official can fall between jurisdictional cracks, as shown in an article today in the New York Times. They can also fall between definitional cracks. And between these cracks it's gray. The article reports that, a couple of years ago, Newark NJ's mayor, Cory Booker, who is running f…

Ethics Commissions & Administration August 6, 2013

EC vs. IG: A Battle It's Better Not to Have

Once again, the failure to work out in advance the relationship between an ethics commission and an inspector general's office has led to the locking of horns in the midst of an ethics proceeding. This time the location of the turf war is the District of Columbia. I've recommended that ethics commi…

August 5, 2013

A City Land Sale That Requires a Broader Investigation

Here's an interesting case study from Hartford, CT. The facts come from an NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters post from Friday and a report of the city's Chief Auditor dated June 27, 2013. In October 2011, the city sold a piece of property to one of the city's merchants associations for $1. That day, …

July 29, 2013

Local IG Makes Charges About Campaign Treasurer Acting As Auditor

On Friday, New Orleans' Inspector General, who works for the city's ethics board, sent off two letters relating to the auditor for the Orleans Parish sheriff's office. One letter was sent to the state's ethics board, which has jurisdiction over local officials, requesting that it take "appropriate …

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