It's not an unfamiliar story. Council candidates promise ethics
reform. They are elected, and actually fulfill their promises with
a proposed ethics ordinance. But there's not really much to the
proposed ethics ordinance, and there's no enforcement mechanism.
This is what is happening in Yorba
Linda (pop. 71,000), just outside Anaheim. The...
Two months ago, I
pointed
out Patricia Salkin's new summary
of
2009
reported cases dealing with ethical aspects of local government land use matters.
I'm finally getting around to analyzing one of them that provides a
fascinating perspective on why conflicts of interest are important. The
decision shows that, when you look at...
Tallahassee takes a compliance approach to ethics. Its ethics code is
aspirational, based on core values. Its ethics training employs a
Character First approach. Conflicts of interest are only a small
portion of a program that ranges from personnel and transparency issues
to harassment, discrimination, and fraud.
This is not the sort of ethics program usually discussed in this blog,
because it is not what is...
Two weeks ago, I
welcomed the new Palm Beach County ethics codes. What I didn't
realize is how much of the county's government isn't covered by the
codes, including other elected officials (and their offices) such as the sheriff, the School Board, the tax collector, the county clerk, the
property appraiser, and the supervisor of...
Standard of proof is a big issue in ethics enforcement, as it is in
any enforcement. A year and a half ago, I wrote a blog post on the
mishmash of standards of proof in local ethics codes and in the codes of states that have jurisdiction over local government ethics.
In many codes there is no stated standard or a worthlessly
ambiguous standard. In others, the standard is clear, but a serious
obstacle to enforcement...
Good and Bad News from Memphis
The good news from Memphis is that newly-elected mayor A. C. Wharton,
Jr. issued an ethics executive order last week (attached; see below).
The order's provisions, which do not apply to council and its staff,
are less valuable in their own right than as a prod to the council to
improve the current
ethics code.