City Related

With the frequent confusion of person and office, sometimes it's not
that easy to tell the difference between a gift to a local
government agency and a gift to its director. This confusion can
open an agency director to accusations of ethical misconduct.<br>
<br>

Several years ago, one of my town's department heads was arrested
for embezzlement of funds. When someone had reported to the first
selectman (effectively the mayor) that this was going on, the first
selectman went to the department head and asked him if the report
was true. The department head denied it. And the matter was dropped.<br>
<br>
Did the first selectman have an obligation to the public not to
accept his department head's word, but instead dig deeper to find out the

It is important to bring contractors into an ethics program,
requiring them to disclose gifts their employees make to officials, and to deal responsibly with
possible conflicts they are aware of. Businesses tend to deal with
such things internally. Bringing them into an ethics program requires them to
recognize that dealing with conflict situations internally is not
enough.<br>
<br>
The fact is that most ethics programs do not place sufficient
requirements on contractors. Often, ethics programs have no

I recently wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/advice-ethics-advice-falls-deaf-ears&…; target="”_blank”">a blog post</a> about a situation where a citizen asked
an ethics commission for ethics advice when council members failed
to do so and, despite the corporation counsel's suggestion that it provide the advice,
the ethics commission refused to provide it.<br>
<br>

Last week, a resident from one of the towns next to mine (Wallingford, CT) called me
for advice regarding his request for an advisory opinion. The
request involved the appropriateness of council members affiliated
with a church participating in a matter that involved funding for
renovation of a wall along the church's parking lot. This is a difficult conflict situation, but some town officials made it much more complicated than it had to be. Not only did
the ethics board, mayor, and council show a lack of understanding of

<b>Update:</b> October 10, 2012 (see below)<br>
<br>
So far, I have ignored this year's most famous local ethics
proceeding, against San Francisco sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. The reason
I ignored it is the reason I am writing about it now:  I think
the proceeding should have been dismissed because the sheriff's misconduct
involved neither a conflict of interest nor his official duties.<br>
<br>
The fact that the complaint was brought by the mayor against an

It was very refreshing to hear Ann Arbor council member Steven
Kunselman, in <a href="http://a2ethics.org/podcasts/city-local-ethics-podcast-series/getting-g…; target="”_blank”">an

When a mayor replaces an entire ethics commission, it usually means
that he is taking over control of the city's ethics program, to protect himself and his allies. This
doesn't appear to be the case in Chicago, where today Mayor Emmanuel
replaced ethics board members whose terms had ended or were about to
end, and whose other members had been asked to resign, according to

According to <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Regretful-DiGiovann…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the San Antonio <i>Express-News</i> this week</a>, San
Antonio's deputy city manager is concerned about whether he mishandled a conflict situation. It involved his
participation on a bid review committee for a $300 million contract

This is the first of a series of looks at the ethics programs of
smaller cities, towns, and counties. These local governments have
the resources to create an independent, comprehensive ethics
program, but they rarely do. It is valuable to look at both the good ideas and the bad ideas
in the programs they have chosen to create.<br>
<br>
I will start with <a href="http://www.leaguecity.com/&quot; target="”_blank”">League City,