County Related | City Ethics

October 16, 2009

An Ethics Reform/Form of Government Spat in Cuyahoga County

In your county, a major corruption investigation is being conducted by the FBI. Already, nearly twenty county employees, city building inspectors, and businessmen have pleaded guilty (see an earlier blog post on the investigation). Others are holding out. What do you do? The usual answer is to crea…

Conflicts of Interest October 13, 2009

A County Attorney's Legal Advice About the Procedure for Her Own Raise

Here's an ugly little case study, based on an ethics complaint filed in September in Hillborough County, the county which includes Tampa. According to the complaint (attached; see below), the county administrator wanted to give herself and the county attorney a 1% salary increase. Salary increases …

September 30, 2009

Maricopa County 5 - Practicing What You Enforce Is Only Fair

A week ago I wrote a blog post about preferential treatment, emphasizing that the way to distinguish preferential treatment from ordinary decisions and transactions, where someone is commonly preferred over others, is by whether the treatment is fair and whether the regular process is followed. Fai…

Ethics Commissions & Administration September 29, 2009

Maricopa County 4 - Local Government Attorney Prosecutions of Those They Represent

One of the more interesting battles in the civil war among Maricopa County elected officials is the Battle of the Civil Division. When the county attorney indicted County Supervisor Don Stapley in December 2008, the board of supervisors decided to take away the county attorney's civil division and …

Transparency & Disclosure September 29, 2009

Maricopa County 3 - Disclosing Properties Owned by a Corporation

A central dispute in the first group of charges brought against Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley involved whether he was required to disclose properties held by a company he owned, as long as he listed the company among his assets. Stapley felt this was not required. It is important to list a…

September 27, 2009

Maricopa County 2 - Perjury Charges as Ethics Enforcement, and Officials' Trust in the Public

Both times Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley has had criminal charges brought against him, the counts included perjury charges for omissions on disclosure forms (2008 charges, 2009 charges). Is this the best or even an appropriate way to handle such omissions? It is true that, just above the s…

September 26, 2009

Maricopa County 1 - Local Government Association Officer-Campaign Contributions

Update: 9/30/09 I was asked to do a short interview on Phoenix's NPR station KJZZ yesterday, to provide a government ethics view on issues relating to the latest battle in the uncivil war among elected officials in Maricopa County, the county that includes Phoenix. My research into what is going on…

September 22, 2009

Palm Beach County Business Coalition Gets Government Ethics

The business coalition in Palm Beach County (FL) really gets it. One reason is that City Ethics' Carla Miller has provided advice. The coalition consists of Leadership Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach County Business Forum, the Palm Beach County Economic Council, and the Voters Coalition. Its posi…

Conflicts of Interest September 18, 2009

An Undisclosed, Widely-Known Conflict as a Matter of Life and Death

Undisclosed conflicts can cause a lot of problems, but rarely are they a matter of life and death. In Collin County, TX, north of Dallas, an undisclosed conflict could have been responsible for a man's death sentence (and, perhaps, many more sentences). According to an article this week in the Plan…

September 10, 2009

Juggling Two Types of Ethics Reform in DuPage County (IL)

DuPage County, IL, a county of nearly a million people just outside Chicago (its largest town is Naperville), is juggling two ethics ordinance revision processes, one for the county, the other for the county election commission. Both appear to have attracted some controversy. County Ethics Ordinanc…

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