City Related

On April 30, the D.C. ethics board reached a settlement with a
council member (attached; see below), whereby he was admonished for
having "used the prestige of his office or his public position for
the private gain" of a company by influencing health department
personnel to leave the site of the business without issuing a notice
of closure, allowing the business to continue to operate for several
more hours.<br>
<br>
Some important issues are raised in this matter, including (1) the

In January, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/ethics-reform-testimony-dc-and-tallah…; target="”_blank”">a
blog post</a> about the District of Columbia ethics board's first
public forum seeking recommendations for ethics reform. On April 17,
the ethics board published a report that makes recommendations for
improvements to the city's ethics program (attached; see below).<br>
<br>

<h4>“The real issue is who’s giving money and real transparency. We’re
going to do this in a way that’s above board. We’re each going to be
contributing our ethical and moral standards that we have been
living our lives by.”</h4><br>

According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/nyregion/business-integrity-commissio…; target="”_blank”">a
column in today's New York <i>Times</i></a> and a visit to the <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/bic/html/home/home.shtml&quot; target="”_blank”">New York

Phoenix has followed Chicago in taking a task force approach to
ethics reform. As in Chicago, the mayor selected the task force. The
Ethics Task Force, which according to <a>an

This week, San Antonio's mayor and city attorney proposed a number of reforms to the
city's ethics code and campaign finance regulations. I will deal
here only with the ethics reforms. A summary of the proposed reforms
and a red-lined copy of the ethics code are attached (see below).<br>
<br>

<b>Applicant Disclosure Is Good for Officials</b><br>
If Ontario or Mississauga required broad applicant disclosure,
Mississauga's mayor would not be in court this week arguing that she
didn't know that her son had invested in a huge hotel and convention

<h4>“There’s a case out there; I myself cannot speak about the case.
However, I would ask the community, each and every one of you, to
keep me in your prayer.”</h4><br>

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New
York, said yesterday, in reference to a sting operation that led to
the arrest of several elected officials in New York City and the
village of Spring Valley, NY, “A show-me-the-money culture seems to
pervade every level of government.” However, that's not really the moral of the story.<br>
<br>

Government ethics is a process issue. Process issues appeal more to,
and are better understood by, lawyers. Although corruption may be
seen as a substance issue, the ways to prevent it are considered
procedural. So at election time, most candidates choose not to talk
about ethics reform, at least in any detail. When they raise the
issue, it is usually to portray themselves as clean and ethical, and
sometimes to portray others as corrupt.<br>
<br>
This process-substance distinction is rarely made, at least