It's hard to know where to start with a situation in Crescent City, CA,
a town of 7,500 in northern California that has already been the
subject of <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/549&quot; target="”_blank”">a City Ethics
blog post</a>.<br>
<br>
One of the most striking things about the situation is that it is the
first time I have seen an anti-SLAPP-suit defense used successfully against someone who

<b>Electing EC Members</b><br>
Is electing an ethics commission a good idea? I had never heard of an
elected EC until this week, when <a href="http://www.pbpindiantribe.com/news.aspx?id=594&quot; target="”_blank”">I read that the
Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, an Indian nation in Kansas, canceled an
EC election</a> for four out of six seats, because there were no
candidates.<br>
<br>

At the very end of last year, a grand jury filed a report that found a great deal of
corruption in Florida's state and local governments, and made numerous
recommendations for ethics reform (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/grand-jury-report-florida-recommends-…; target="”_blank”">my blog post on the report</a>). This provided the perfect

As discussed in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/dallas-ethics-reform-proposals-go-vot…
earlier
blog post</a>, eighteen months ago the Dallas council, under the
prodding of the mayor at the time, passed

Good news:  Westminster is not alone. No, I am not referring to
the British Parliament or the New York dog show. I am referring to the
Westminster, CO law that says that a campaign contributor has a relationship with the recipient of a sizeable campaign contribution
that gives rise to a conflict of interest and requires the recipient's withdrawal from participation

As if Florida hasn't had enough scandals lately, there is now a mess in
Sarasota County, on Florida's Gulf Coast. The focus is on terrible
procurement policies and procedures that apparently allowed a lot of
unethical behavior to occur. But as is usually the case, the center of
the problem appears to have been the adminstration's attitude. And that attitude seems to have come out in the negotiations over the county administrator's severance package.<br>
<br>

<b>Update</b>: November 1, 2011 (see below)<br>
<br>
Hundreds of Bronx police officers are being investigated for ticket
fixing, one of the most common forms of preferential treatment in local
governments across the country. What's especially notable about

This is the second half of my look at Mary C. Gentile's 2010 book, <i>Giving Voice to Values.</i><br>
<br>
<b>Naming and Framing</b><br>
Framing is central to acting on one's values. So often ethics
matters have already, effectively, been framed (and justified) by an
organization.
There are accepted truisms (this is the way it's always been done) and
stories that everyone knows (the last time someone disagreed openly

The failure to deal responsibly with conflicts of interest has many
causes, but the principal cause is the silence of those who are not
directly responsible. I've written several times about some of the

Last August, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/gifts-professional-services&quot; target="”_blank”">a
blog post</a> about the mayor of Tulsa accepting free legal services
from an attorney who represented Tulsa in certain matters, that is,
from a city contractor. The matter involved the council possibly filing
charges against the mayor for allegedly lying about a federal police
grant.<br>
<br>