The Jacksonville Daily Record today <a href="http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=48985&quot; target="_blank">published a story</a> covering the first ethics training since the new code revisions were ratified by Council on Tuesday last week.
"<cite>Miller instructed the Council staff not to get too bogged down in the technicalities of the law, but to adopt an overall ethical mind set to help guide their decision-making.</cite>"

<h2>City staffers get ethics introduction</h2>
<p>From: <a href="http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=48985&quot; target="_blank">http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=48985</a><br />

See: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071203-AP-aus-kyoto.htm…;
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed the instrument of ratification in his first act after being sworn in this morning.<br>The ratification will come into force in 90 days.</p>

Found this site today:
<br>http://www.governmentdocs.org/ <br>
Their Description: <i>www.governmentdocs.org was created to advance the values of open and accountable government. This site gives the public an unprecedented level of access to government documents by allowing users to browse, search, and review hundreds of thousands of pages acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other public disclosure, or “sunshine,” laws.</i>"

Jacksonville's Ethics Commission recently went through a two year revision process of their City's Ethics Code.
The resulting updates were finally ratified by the City Council last Tuesday night. See the Times Union article below... Note that I will get the code revisions up in a separate blog entry later.

Voter ID laws, which are being pushed by the Bush Administration and by Republicans at the state level, have an effect on municipal elections, as well. They are not only a federal and state problem.

I've just finished reading a book called <i>Illicit</I> by Moises Naim, about the trafficking of everything from people and drugs to artworks and counterfeit DVDs .

One of the things Naim focuses on is why governments have so much trouble putting a dent into any of these types of trafficking. The principal reason is the structure of relationships. Government bureaucracies lose out to increasingly flexible networks of individuals.

I also write <a href="http://northhaveninfo.blogspot.com&quot; />a blog relating to my town's government</a>.

Is there an ethical requirement to discuss matters that are not being discussed?

Dan Goleman, the author of <I>Emotional Intelligence</I>, refers to something he calls the Four Attentional Rules. 'In any group, from the family, to organizations, to entire societies, there are these unstated rules that we learn tacitly about the questions that can't be asked.'

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/335">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>

Usually an ethics pledge is something required of a town official or something requested by a good government organization. But sometimes an ethics pledge is an election strategy.

This is the case in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the state legislature's Government Administration and Elections co-chair Christopher Caruso and his Citizens for Real Change slate of candidates took an ethics pledge earlier this month.