An Ethics Reform Miscellany

It may be midsummer, but it's still a busy season for local government ethics. Here's how a few local governments are dealing with ethics reform.

Palm Beach County commissioners agreed to create an inspector general and ethics commission, according to an article in the Palm Beach Post. The commission says it will ask voters in November 2010 whether they want these entities to cover all officials in the county, including school boards and municipal governments.

The occasion for this decision is a grand jury's recommendation of these ethics reforms. Three former county commissioners are in prison for using their offices to enrich themselves, leading Time to call the county "the new capital of Florida corruption."

However, according to the article and a Post editorial, there is talk about not being able to afford these ethics reforms, questions about the entities' independence, about commissioners stalling, etc.

Some charter commission candidates in Detroit are emphasizing the need for ethics reforms, according to an editorial in the Detroit News this week. Reforms they're seeking include independence of the ethics board from mayor and council, investigative powers, and the elimination of the confidentiality of ethics reports. These are all important ethics reforms.

According to an article in the Miami Herald this week, it appears that a recommended ethics reform in Miami Beach might be part of a personal feud. There aren't many worse reasons to make changes to an ethics code.

The proposed rule would prevent campaign consultants from lobbying the city commission for two years after working on a campaign. It just so happens that a former campaign consultant for two allied commissioners has become a lobbyist, and he's had a falling out with the candidates he consulted with.

Another Herald article mentions other proposed ethics reforms, including a provision barring anyone whose firm receives compensation from a city vendor from serving on the commission (said by one commissioner to be aimed at another commissioner) and some transparency provisions.

According to an article in the Yakima (WA) Herald, the Yakima council asked the Rules and Procedures Committee to draft an ethics code. The occasion appears to have been an allegation by a former council member that four council members violated the state open-meetings law by arranging votes on a new budget policy outside a public meeting. But there was some skepticism among members about the need for such a code and about the creation of a new bureaucracy (which is unlikely for a city the size of Yakima).

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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