County Related

This week, according to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cuyahoga County (which includes Cleveland) passed a new ethics code, largely based on the recommended code drafted in October by the Code of Ethics Workgroup, set up by the Cuyahoga County Transition Advisory Group Executive Committee (the transition referred to is a change in form of government; see

Update: March 19, 2011 (see below)

Cook County assessor Joseph Berrios is becoming a regular character in this blog (see below for prior posts on him). This time he is declaring unconstitutional a law passed by the county to limit his fundraising from lawyers who appeal property tax assessments. And he has the support of a questionable opinion from the local state's attorney, according to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday.

I don't usually turn over an entire blog post to someone else, although I would like very much to do it. This letter to the editor by Kevin Haggerty, the Lackawanna County (PA) deputy director of government and community affairs (and candidate for state representative), which appeared in the Times Leader on Saturday, is too well written to summarize, and it says it all.

Term limits, the recession, a new kind of governmental district, and a drive to save and manage local parks have all contributed to a fascinating ethics situation in Pierce County, Washington, home of Tacoma. Just last year I stayed in Pierce County and visited some of these parks, so this story is a little more concrete to me than most I write about.

Park Districts

Here are three interesting conflict of interest case studies from Tuesday's news.

Conflicts That Make You Act Differently, and Imaginative Resolutions

An article in the Bismarck (ND) Tribune this weekend raised the issue of when a board or commission member may withdraw from a matter in which he feels he has a conflict, but where there is not a direct, pecuniary interest.

You know you're doing a pretty poor job with government ethics when a grand jury recommends that you be all but abolished. This is the case with the Broward County School Board, according to a report published on Frday. It concludes, on p. 48:

Unfortunately based on the history of this Board as an institution, we have no confIdence in their ability to make meaningful changes and to adhere to them.

It's nice to be able to write about a difficult conflict situation that is handled responsibly. It's unusual to be able to write about a resolution where the local newspaper ends its editorial saying that the right thing has been done.

Transparency, although not generally part of a local ethics code, is central to a local government's ethics environment. A lack of transparency is both a tell-tale sign that things are wrong, and an impediment to discussing ethics issues and enforcing ethics violations. Unfortunately, ethics codes do have confidential information provisions, making it appear to those who do not understand government ethics that it is more important to hide confidential information than to let the sunshine in.