County Related

Form of government issues are not generally considered to be part of government ethics.  But they are intertwined in important ways.

This can be seen from the New York City Council slush fund scandal.  According to an article in today's New York Times, it began when the Board of Estimate, a finance board in charge of writing the budget, was abolished in the charter revision of 1989.  This gave control of the budget to the Council.

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Ethics complaints are often brought for purely political reasons, and election time is the favorite time for bringing them.

According to an article in yesterday's Flint Journal, a Thetford Township Supervisor brought an ethics complaint before his own board against a township Trustee who is planning to run for his seat this year. The complaint raises a reasonable problem involving a property tax exemption, but it is clearly not a violation of the township's ethics code.

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Elizabeth Wolgast’s 1992 book, Ethics of an Artificial Person: Lost Responsibility in Professions and Organizations, raises some very important government ethics questions. I will deal with just one of them here.

The term “artificial persons” includes lawyers and government officials who are considered to act in the name of others. Wolgast’s book looks at the problems such artificial persons cause with respect to our ordinary views of such ethical issues as responsibility and accountability.

Too often, Wolgast says, lawyers and government officials hide behind their roles. I’m just representing my client as best I can, lawyers say. I’m just implementing policy, representing and helping my constituents, following legal advice.

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Ethics in a small town can be very problematic when one large company with special property interests comes into town. Whether it is a developer, a landfill owner, or other sort of business that seeks to get property or expand its holdings at an inexpensive price, its needs often lead it to tempt individual local government officials or dominate the town's politics.

In Franklin County (northeastern New York State), a new sort of business has been causing local governments ethics problems: wind farm companies. This has been well documented by anti-wind farm groups such as www.windaction.org.

It appears that officials in a few small towns entered into contracts, easements, and lease-option agreements with wind farm companies, and did not recuse themselves when decisions involving wind farm companies came before their board or council. It also appears that many of these towns have not required such recusal.

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Everyone knows it’s not right for government officials to favor their friends, but because friendships are so difficult to define, they don’t appear in ethics codes. Relatives can be defined, domestic partners can be defined, business associates can be defined, but not boyfriends or pals or old buddies. This is one of the limitations of dealing with ethics in the form of a law.

But the Massachusetts Ethics Commission, which deals with local government as well as state government officials, has found a way to deal with favoritism given to friends. According to its April 30 press release, a former county retirement board member was found to have violated the state conflict of interest law by awarding a building renovation contract to a friend and failing to disclose the friendship, and also by voting to hire his friend to manage the facility and again failing to disclose the friendship.

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Confidentiality is a sticky issue in ethics investigations. It appears to be the norm, but many people do not seem to understand why it exists, or what duties it creates.

An interesting confidentiality issue arose recently in Beaufort, South Carolina, according to an article in today’s Beaufort Gazette. A former mayoral candidate filed a complaint against the current mayor with the state Ethics Commission. The city attorney found out about the complaint and told the city council, which put out a press release about the complaint.

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Back to New York City, where more information is coming out about the special “slush” funds given out to city council members.

According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times and an editorial in today’s, one member has, in recent years, given more than $400,000 in city funds to a nonprofit agency, run by some of his closest aides, which does almost nothing but hand money on to other organizations, and yet somehow is in a financial mess.

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What’s been happening recently in Lincoln, Nebraska, concerning city officials having contracts with the city, provides food for thought on a few basic conflicts of interest issues.

One issue is whether city officials and employees should be allowed to have contracts with the city. Or are full and open bidding provisions enough? Or full disclosure?

Another issue is whether a city council is the right body to decide this question.

Yet another issue is the inclusiveness of conflicts language.

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Once again, the New York Times has an article today that touches on municipal ethics issues. A municipal scandal does wonders.

This time the issue is campaigns hiring relatives of city council candidates. It happens all the time, and it’s not illegal (in New York City and most of the country), but as Susan Lerner, the executive director of New York Common Cause, is quoted as saying, “It’s the type of thing which makes ordinary voters suspicious of the motives of candidates. It’s the sort of thing that makes ordinary voters dislike politicians.”

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Today’s New York Times has an article that focuses on John McCain’s dealings with a big Arizona developer, Donald Diamond.

There are two issues here that I would like to bring up. First, the ultimate defense, which McCain’s campaign employs: helping a constituent. McCain “had done nothing for Mr. Diamond that he would not do for any other Arizona citizen.”

Diamond is not any other constituent. He traveled with McCain during the early primaries in 2000, and is on the campaign trail again this year. He is chair of McCain’s finance committee. He has given McCain $55,000 in contributions, and has raised more than $250,000 for him this year.

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