County Related

The recent arrest of the Prince George's County (MD) executive and his wife, who is a new member of the county council, shows how wrong it is to give the county executive and individual council members power over development projects, a topic I've written about with respect to Dallas and Chicago.

An editorial in the Lake Forester last week questions whether the county board of Lake County (IL) should be taking a fresh look at the county's ethics program.

The call for an ethics committee to review Lake County's ethics ordinances and policies sounds laudable on the surface, but the question has to be begged:  Is this really needed?

At last week's COGEL conference, I learned about a judicial case involving the Anne Arundel County (MD) Ethics Commission, which has been going on for six years. A decision of the Court of Special Appeals last November is worth a look. There's a lot of interesting material for local government ethics professionals. Two of the issues the case raises are the difference between legal ethics and government ethics, and the filing of ethics complaints by politicians.

Chinese walls, that is, ways to separate an official from a matter as to which he has a conflict, are a perfect way to appear to be responsibly handling a series of possible conflicts, but are these walls great or are they window dressing? And even if the walls truly work, are they enough to deal responsibly with a series of possible conflicts?

Investigations of purported ethics violations by the Middlesex County (MA) sheriff apparently led to his suicide on Saturday. According to a Boston Globe chronology, the sheriff filed papers for retirement on October 28, while running for re-election on November 2. His plan was to get a pension and a salary.

Update: December 1, 2010 (see below)

Last week, the Texas Attorney General issued a legal opinion on the role of the county attorney in representing and advising the El Paso County ethics commission, which was established in 2009.

Update: December 16, 2012 (see below)

Broward County (FL) voters embraced (3-1) two ethics questions on the ballot yesterday, which applied the new county code of ethics to all municipalities in the county as well as to all constitutional offices (including the sheriff, appraiser, and clerk). They voted 6-1 for the question "Allow counties to show taxpayers the portion of property taxes attributable to constitutional officers." But this extremely reasonable matter still has to be approved by the state.

I learned recently that the Luzerne County (PA) ethics pledge movement, which I wrote about in May and September, is complemented by a draft charter which is to be approved or rejected by voters on November 2.

All ethics oversight cannot be done by an ethics commission. Much oversight needs to be done outside of the complaint process. Even when complaints are made, a lack of proper oversight can leave a big hole in the facts available to an EC. I came across such a situation in yesterday's Bristol (VA) News.