County Related | City Ethics

Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play August 10, 2012

Influence vs. Pay to Play

A big controversy surrounding the race for mayor of Honolulu is focused on the state's pay-to-play culture of the past, and what pay to play actually is. The reason for this is that a former Hawaii governor is running for mayor, and he is being supported by Bob Watada, a former state Campaign Spend…

Ethics Commissions & Administration August 8, 2012

Problems with an IG Approach to Local Government Ethics

I believe that an ethics commission/ethics officer approach to local government ethics is far better than an inspector general approach. The simultaneous creation of an EC/EO approach in Palm Beach County, FL and an IG approach in neighboring Broward County provides a small laboratory for seeing wh…

Conflicts of Interest August 2, 2012

The Conflicts of Colorado's Public Trustees

Luis Toro, director of Colorado Watch, wrote an interesting Huffington Post post yesterday about ethics issues relating to Colorado's public trustee system. Public trustees (one per county) oversee the foreclosure system in the state. They work things out between lenders and homeowners. Most of the…

Conflicts of Interest July 25, 2012

When a High-Level Official Seeks Special Treatment

One of the things that really ticks citizens off is when a local official uses his position to try to get out of a traffic ticket. The financial benefit may be minor, but there are two things that are major. One is that this conduct suggests that favoritism is common in the government. That is, the…

July 3, 2012

Problems with Luzerne County's New Ethics Program

I have written three blog posts criticizing the ethics program created by Luzerne County, PA in response to one of the ugliest scandals in modern times. Luzerne County finally got its ethics program going this year, swearing in the members of its Accountability, Conduct, and Ethics Commission in Ma…

Local Government Practice May 15, 2012

Professional Proselytizing As Political Activity

Here's an interesting political activity situation out of La Crosse County, Wisconsin. According to an article in the La Crosse Tribune last week, the county administrator was involved in supporting a referendum to give the city of La Crosse its own administrator. A city or county manager is not su…

Conflicts of Interest May 11, 2012

Misusing the Opportunities Given By One's Government Position

Imagine that you're a county supervisor with a $92,000 salary and, despite the salary, you're allowed to hold an outside job (because the county supervisors before you gave you, and themselves, this opportunity). With a sizeable salary, there would appear to be no reason to work in any field that w…

Ethics Commissions & Administration April 25, 2012

A County Ethics Program Run by a Non-Independent Ombudsman

Although in 2008, Orange County, Florida's Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform Task Force recommended (report attached; see below) that the county have an ethics board selected by a variety of community organizations, following the model of Miami/Dade County, and Section 2-457 of the county ordinanc…

April 20, 2012

Grand Jury Report on Manipulation of the Suffolk County (NY) Ethics Commission

For the second time in a year, a local ethics commission has been the subject of a grand jury report. The first was San Francisco's (see my blog post). There, it was a civil grand jury and the focus was on the commission. Here and now, it is a criminal grand jury, and the focus is on the county exe…

Ethics Commissions & Administration April 19, 2012

Outsourcing Local Ethics Administration to the State EC

Update: December 20, 2012 (see below) It looks like outsourcing may finally come to local government ethics. No, this doesn't mean that a city's hotline will be picked up by someone in India (in fact, hotlines in some localities are already outsourced to corporations). What it means is that the ong…

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