If anyone questions the value of advice regarding municipal ethics issues, look at these statistics from the Atlanta Ethics Office.

66% of ethics complaints filed in 2007 alleged use of city property.
3% of the requests for advice in 2007 involved use of city property.

If only people would ask. At least, Atlanta has an Ethics Officer to ask.

My guess is that people who want to make use of city property don’t want to be told they can’t. They know the answer, so they don’t ask. The other possibility is that a lot of people use city property (or at least that’s what individuals think), and so they feel it’s okay.

Now that the new Ethics Office has given out some hefty fines for use of city property, people should be getting the message. It will be interesting to see the statistics for 2008.