City Related

Contracting is one of the municipal ethics issues that is most often overlooked as an ethics issue. One reason is that the laws governing competitive bidding are often at the state level. Another is that municipal competitive bidding laws often appear outside codes of ethics (often because they are state mandated). But municipal contracting should be at the center of ethics concerns, because it is a relatively secret area where a great deal of wrongdoing and harm can occur.

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Reading the newspapers, you might not realize that behind all the fraud, non-disclosure, and "reckless mismanagement" that former S.E.C. Chair Arthur Levitt found in San Diego's pension and wastewater systems were serious conflicts of interest. The sort of conflicts of interest that most people consider "just doing business."

The August 8 New York Times article does refer to these conflicts, recognizing that...

One of the most serious problems with municipal ethics codes is their unreadability. Few of those who write them seem to consider the capabilities of the code's audience: municipal officials and employees without a legal education.

Patronage is the most basic of all municipal conflicts of interest. It involves not only self-interest (my job), but also a variety of organizational interests (my agency, party, ethnic or racial group, friends). In every little patronage decision, all of these interests take precedence over the public interest. And yet patronage is also the most commonly practiced, and accepted, of all municipal conflicts of interest. Nowhere has patronage been practiced and accepted more than in Chicago....

As canaries were to mines, apologies are to a municipality's ethical environment. If you don't see a good number of sincere apologies, then ethics and accountability are probably dead in your town. In addition, insincere apologies are a sure sign that the town's political leaders are manipulative and trying to get something for nothing.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in Randall v. Sorrell is a setback for municipal efforts at campaign finance reform (CFR). CFR is a municipal ethics issue, because the justification for campaign spending and contribution limits is that such limits help to prevent corruption.