It is unethical for a local official to violate a law, especially
the city or county charter. But such a violation is usually not a
government ethics violation, because it has nothing to do with conflicts
of interest. It may be a misuse of office, but it is not a misuse of office to benefit oneself, one's family, or one's business associates.<br>
<br>
And yet some ethics codes contain a provision making a
legal or charter violation an ethics violation. Here is one from

Six years ago, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/257&quot; target="”_blank”">a
blog post</a> on apology (including full disclosure) in the
medical context. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/opinion/invitation-to-a-dialogue-when…; target="”_blank”">Today's

Court decisions, especially when combined with criminal enforcement
of ethics violations, can be very harmful to local government ethics. The court in a Monterey County case involving a serious <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/californias-contract-oriented-conflic…; target="”_blank”">§1090</a>
conflict of interest matter that officials were not only aware of,

<b>Who Should Oversee Nepotism Rules?</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Stamford-Reps-revamp-anti-…; target="”_blank”">an article in the Stamford (CT) <i>Advocate</i> last week</a>, Stamford's Board
of Representatives voted to amend an anti-nepotism bill to instead
require the city's human resources director to draft a nepotism

<a href="http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Ethics-laws-outdated-not-used…; target="”_blank”">An
investigative article in Sunday's Albany <i>Times-Union</i></a> looks at
the local government ethics programs in 78 local governments in four
New York counties. What it found is sadly typical in most states.<br>
<br>
What it found was that at least 30 of the governments had not

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/increased-ec-authority-and-access-ann…; target="”_blank”">Yesterday's
blog post</a> discussed the law giving California's Fair
Political Practices Commission (FPPC) authority over §1090
of the state code, which deals with contract-related conflicts of
interest and applies to both local and state officials. Knowing little about this section, which stands outside

Some good news from California, which takes an odd, hybrid approach
to local government ethics. It has a state ethics commission (the
Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC)) that has limited
authority over local officials in the areas of conflicts of interest
and campaign finance. And the state has many local government ethics
programs, which are all over the place in terms of quality and areas
over which they have authority.<br>
<br>
The first piece of good news is that the FPPC has been given the

Yesterday evening, I attended a meeting of my town's planning and
zoning commission. The principal agenda item involved a request for
an amendment to the town plan to allow the building of a private
recycling center in the town. The commission's secretary read a letter from the
requesting party's attorney, who is a member of another town board, withdrawing the request. The letter
said that the principal reason for withdrawal of the request was
opposition to the amendment by a small group of citizens who had

The Miami-Dade County ethics commission has been a leader in
reaching out to the community. In 2011, it co-sponsored <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/local-government-ethics-conference-be…; target="”_blank”">a
local government ethics conference</a>, which attracted people
from all over Florida. In 2012, it organized the first Ethical

A new online collaborative effort in the field of campaign
finance was launched yesterday. Known as <a href="http://fppc.ca.gov/suncenter/&quot; target="”_blank”">the SUN Center</a> (SUN
stands for States’ Unified Network, even though it includes cities