Complaints/ Investigations/Hearings

It's amazing how much local government ethics activity there is in
this July. Here is a miscellany of issues that have arisen
in just the last few days.<br>
<br>

Should an ethics violation be an impediment to future jobs? In
general, I don't think so, especially when the violation was handled
responsibly, that is, without a denial, cover-up, and costly,
unnecessary investigation and hearing process. But sometimes ethics
violations involve much more than the failure to deal responsibly
with a conflict.<br>
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They have various names, such as councils of governments (COGs),
joint powers authorities (JPAs), and regional councils or commissions, but whatever names they have, these
local government associations are often left outside of both
local and state government ethics programs. And yet, as the term
"joint powers authorities" implies, they do wield power and do spend
or affect the spending of money, often huge amounts of money in transportation, water, and other construction projects.<br>
<br>

Despite writing this blog for six years, I keep finding
important areas of government ethics that I have not discussed. One
such area involves dealing with the possible conflicts of outside auditors. Large cities and counties
have internal auditors or comptrollers, but most local governments
employ the services of external auditing firms, just as companies do.
These auditors have special duties toward their clients, that is, to
the community, not to the individuals who hire them and with whom

<h4>"Trying to protect public officials from warrantless ethics
complaints is a fruitless task; there will always be some who make
outrageous claims about the behavior of those at city hall.<br>
<br>
"Hiding such complaints from the public view, however, will not
make them go away. It’s better for the public to learn who is
crying wolf — along with those who have discovered a fox in the
henhouse — than to shield such things under the cloak of secrecy
and the notion of protecting reputations."</h4>

Independent agencies are more likely than regular government
agencies to get into trouble, because they are usually more closed
and less supervised. And yet officials too often listen to agencies'
calls for independence from ethics programs, as if the
"independence" meant something positive that should be respected,
rather than that the agencies are unsupervised and unaccountable. An independent agency's
independence is only something positive when it is a watchdog

It's Attack the Ethics Commission week once again, this time in New
York State. According to <a href="http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/126018/binghamton-mayor-won…; target="”_blank”">an
April 16 article in the Albany <i>Times-Union</i></a>, a mayor from one
party filed a complaint against the deputy majority leader of the

Today, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/business/at-wal-mart-in-mexico-a-brib…; target="”_blank”">the
New York <i>Times</i> ran a length investigatory report</a> on Walmart's
extensive bribery of local Mexican officials intended to rush
through permits and zoning approvals, reduce environmental impact
fees, and gain the allegiance of these officials.<br>
<br>

A few days too late for St. Patrick's Day, <a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/the-reward-that-cost-250m-and-was-…; target="”_blank”">today's
Irish <i>Examiner</i> has a wonderful story</a> about catching officials
involved in ethical misconduct relating to land use. It's an old
story, but new to me, and probably new to you, as well. The occasion

Newspapers aren't called the fourth estate for nothing. But in
cities these days, they are more like the third estate, more important, that is,
than the clergy. In fact, their investigations and editorials can
bring down mayors, council presidents, even parties.<br>
<br>
Local dailies may be losing money hand over fist, and weeklies, online papers, and blogs have taken away some of their power,
but the dailies still have more power with respect to politicians and
policies than anyone else.<br>
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