County Related | City Ethics

Conflicts of Interest April 19, 2012

Explaining the Business Aspects of a Conflict Situation

Here's an interesting conflict situation out of Forsyth County, Georgia. According to an article in the Forsyth News, a county commissioner owns a company that buys county water and sells it to county residents who used to have wells. The company owns the infrastructure that supplies water to four …

April 14, 2012

New Wayne County, MI Ethics Code Falls Short

On April 5, the county commission in Wayne County, MI (which includes Detroit) passed a new ethics ordinance (attached; see below), following multiple scandals. It contains many good provisions, but it does not create a government ethics program. By this, I mean that it does not provide an independ…

April 12, 2012

A County Attorney Disbarred for Ethical Misconduct

Former Maricopa County, AZ county attorney Andrew Thomas (with one of his assistants) was disbarred on Tuesday on numerous counts related to bringing false charges against other county officials over a period of years, according to an article in yesterday's Arizona Republic. According to Prof. Benn…

September 21, 2011

A Miscellany

Legal Disciplinary Proceeding as Ethics Enforcement Forum Occasionally, government ethics enforcement spills out from ethics and criminal proceedings into other types of proceeding. Since Maricopa County's officials have managed to turn ethics and criminal enforcement into a form of internecine war…

Conflicts of Interest August 3, 2011

The Potential Conflicts of Georgia's Community Improvement Districts

In Georgia, Community Improvement Districts (CIDs) are a creation of state government (they're in the amended 1984 state constitution) that involves local governments in serious potential conflicts of interest, in order to allow developers to fund their public infrastructure with tax-free bonds. CI…

July 28, 2011

An Insufficiently Bid Contract in Essex County, NJ

It's not every day that an article about an insufficiently bid county contract appears on the front page of a major newspaper, but that's what happened today with the New York Times. Insufficiently bid contracts are one of the most serious signs of corruption in local government. The requirement of…

June 29, 2011

District Attorney Insists, "My Staff Has Been Following My [Ethics] Rules"

Last week, I wrote about a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision invalidating a Montgomery County's ethics code to the extent it applied to the employees of independent agencies, such as the district attorney's office. According to an article in yesterday's Pokiomen Valley Patch, the district attorne…

Ethics Codes & Reform June 22, 2011

Taking State Laws Into Account When Drafting Ethics Provisions

It is important to take state laws into account when drafting ethics provisions, especially in local governments that do not have home rule charters. Here are two situations in the news where this was not done, and ethics reform has been undermined. Dealing with the state laws from the beginning co…

Local Government Practice May 28, 2011

The Obligations of a County Administrator on the Way Out After a Scandal

As if Florida hasn't had enough scandals lately, there is now a mess in Sarasota County, on Florida's Gulf Coast. The focus is on terrible procurement policies and procedures that apparently allowed a lot of unethical behavior to occur. But as is usually the case, the center of the problem appears …

May 20, 2011

A Miscellany

Waiving the Privilege and The Extent of Withdrawal According to an article in yesterday's Business Journal Daily, the Ohio Ethics Commission, which has jurisdiction over local government ethics, is investigating the Western Reserve Port Authority's lease of property at the local airport near Youngs…

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