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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The lastest abuse of the word “ethical” in government is by a relatively new Paraguayan party, the National Union of Ethical Citizens (Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Éticos). According to an article in last week’s Economist, its presidential candidate, Lino Ovideo, is a former general who allegedly planned a coup in 1996, and was involved in the assassination of Paraguay’s vice-president in 1999.

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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In a long and very important article in today’s New York Times about the conflicts of interest of so-called television and radio network military analysts, one analyst says that the network he works for asked few questions about analysts’ outside business interests, the nature of their work, or the potential of that work to create conflicts of interest.

“The worst conflict of interest was no interest,” he said.

Hiring military analysts who work for military contractors and whose writing is vetted by Pentagon officials is such a serious conflict of interest that the networks just didn’t want to know how bad it was. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

Until it comes out, that is. If you don’t ask the right questions and insist on full responses, then you are equally responsible for the conflicts of interest. You are telling people with conflicts that it’s okay to have them, as long as they keep them to themselves. Don’t ask, don’t tell. It works for gays in the military, why not for network analysts?

The worst conflict of interest is no interest. This is true at any level of government. If you don’t want to know, you are responsible. If you don’t want an independent and effective ethics system, if you don’t want full disclosure, then you want there to be conflicts and you are telling people with conflicts that it is okay to have them, it is okay to pursue personal interests while acting as though you are working in the public interest.

Don’t ask, don’t tell is the default setting for municipal ethics. And it’s the worst conflict of interest there is, because it allows all the other conflicts to exist and remain hidden.