It's not an unfamiliar story. Council candidates <a href="http://www.ed4yl.com/Contract%20with%20YL.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”">promise ethics
reform</a>. 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.<br>
<br>

Political activity by local government employees can be a sign of misuse of office. And when election problems arise, they generally involve local
government employees, as has happened in <a href="http://www.essex-countynj.org/">Essex County</a> (NJ; home of
Newark), according to <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/essex_county_elections_chief_c…

Two months ago, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/2009-local-land-use-ethics-update-now…
pointed
out</a> Patricia Salkin's new <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1493502">summary
of
2009
reported cases</a> dealing with ethical aspects of local government land use matters.

<b>Baltimore Mayor Resigns</b><br>
Baltimore's mayor resigned on Wednesday, fortunately after being
convicted of the crime of embezzlement (albeit for $500 in gift cards)
rather than the ethics violation (not yet tried) of failing to include
gifts on her financial disclosure statement (see <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.plea07j…

Many complex conflicts of interest involve the spouses and other close family
members of local government officials, as can be seen in Broward County
(FL, home of Ft. Lauderdale) according to <a href="http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/10/fbi_…
article in the <i>Sun-Sentinel</i></a>.<br>
<br>

It's worth a look at Philadelphia columnist <a href="http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20100106_Dave_Davies__Guts___glor…
Davies' last column</a> after twenty-five years on the job. It's
something rarely seen in the local government ethics world: a hymn of
praise to a local ethics commission, which he calls "a watchdog that
isn't afraid to bite."<br>

New York City's <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/conflicts/html/home/home.shtml">Conflicts
of Interest Board</a> is one of the premier
ethics commissions in the U.S. One would assume that its rules and
procedures would provide an example, as well as guidance, for the rest
of the state. So I would like to look at ethics programs in the other
largest (although not large) cities in the state,
in order by population.<br>

Worth taking a look at is the work of <a href="http://californiawatch.org/&quot; target="”_blank”">California Watch</a> in disclosing
the use of county party committees to launder campaign contributions
far over the legal limits.<br>
<br>
The nonpartisan good government organization presents the data in three
different forms:<br>
<br>

If citizens could once in their lives be a juror in a government ethics
trial, we would have incredible ethics laws. This is the conclusion one
comes to after reading, in <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=880165&quot; target="”_blank”">an

One of the most common mistakes government officials make is to see
recusal as involving only a decision whether or not to vote on a matter
where they have a possible conflict of interest. A Phoenix council member and a
city attorney appear to have made this mistake.<br>
<br>