A Miscellany

Outside Ethics Commission Members
According to an article in yesterday's Salisbury (MD) Daily Times, the mayor of Snow Hill (pop. 2400) has decided to look outside his town for members of an ad hoc ethics commission to deal with an ethics complaint arising from a zoning appeals board decision.

"It's not that the citizens of Snow Hill wouldn't be honest and upright. I just think when it involves neighbors, you are better off having people who don't know the parties and are impartial."

I don't know if the mayor realizes how radical this idea is, or how difficult it can be to implement. Impartiality is an important goal, but it is hard enough to get people to join their own town commissions, not to mention other towns'. This is why the best ways small towns can obtain impartial ethics commissions is either through state ethics commissions or regional ethics commissions, that is, towns joining together, each naming one member of a joint ethics commission.

When Is a Renter-Landlord Relationship a Conflict?
When a renter-landlord relationship constitutes a potential conflict can be difficult to determine. A major issue is whether the renter is paying a fair market value for the lease. But even if the renter is paying full price, there is still a special relationship between the two, and there are many ways in which a landlord can give favors to a renter.

According to an article in today's Los Angeles Times, this issue has arisen with respect to a pension fund manager and a pension fund board member in Los Angeles. It turns out that both of them rented apartments in the same building, owned by an investment company whose funds both boards decided to invest in. The investment company insisted that both renters paid a fair market value for their leases.

But the reporter points out how fishy it looks that two pension fund officials, both of whom came to L.A. from the state pension fund, found apartments in the same building owned by a company seeking business from the L.A. pension funds. This is an additional problem with even a fair renter-landlord relationship: the appearance of impropriety.

This appearance is strengthened by a current Los Angeles Ethics Commission investigation to determine whether one of the officials violated the city's revolving door provision, by negotiating employment with a company that had pending city business.

I took a somewhat different approach to a renter-landlord relationship in an earlier blog post

The Financial Disclosures of County Legislators
Financial disclosure by local government officials is useful both for the public to know what conflicts may arise, and for the officials themselves to consider potential conflict situations they will want to deal with responsibly.

The Utica (NY) Observer-Dispatch did an article this weekend on the disclosures of Oneida County legislators. It's worth a look to see the range of involvements of local government officials, the ways in which conflicts can occur and, in some cases, how the officials are dealing responsibly or irresponsibly with their conflicting interests.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

---