City Related

It is difficult to emphasize too much that council control over the
ethics process is not only inappropriate and ineffective, but harmful.
The first use of a new ethics ordinance in the aptly named <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Ground,_Washington&quot; target="”_blank”">Battle
Ground, Washington</a> (pop. 18,000) provides yet another example of
the problems that may arise.<br>
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Is discomfort with a centralized ethics program by various parts of a local
government something that should stand in the way of creating one?
According to <a href="http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/12/24/news/shoreline/bb1maethic…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the New Haven <i>Register</i> last week</a>, this has been

If "conflict of interest" were a cause of action, what would it be? A
matter right in the small city next to my town answers this question,
and gives a new angle by which to view conflicts.<br>
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<b>Government Executives and the Ethics Commission Selection Process</b><br>
Should government chief executives appoint ethics commission members or their
staff? The common practice is that they usually do. But the common
practice is not necessarily the best practice, especially when it puts a conflict of interest at the heart of the conflict of interest process.<br>
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This issue has arisen in a very concrete way in Montana, where the

What can local government ethics professionals learn from what has come out in <a href="http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C41679911215.PDF&quot; target="”_blank”">the
recent indictments</a> of former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his
father, the city's
director of water and sewerage, Kilpatrick's CAO and CIO, and a city
contractor?<br>
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<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/image-consultants-role-local-governme…; target="”_blank”">My
last blog post</a> involved the <a href="http://www.bcerssite.org/index.html&quot; target="”_blank”">Baltimore Employees'
Retirement System</a> board calling in an image consultant to help

Things have changed. It used to be that the first thing you did when
you found out the local ethics commission was investigating you was
hire a lawyer (which is itself a change from the days when you found
out you were being investigated by the D.A. and handed him a bribe).<br>
<br>
In this era of the image and the consultant, the truly with-it (if that
term is still in use) government official turns to the image

<b>A Failure to Respond to an Ethics Complaint</b><br>
It's always interesting to see how many ways there are not to deal with
ethics complaints. When you think you've seen them all, a new one comes
out of nowhere.<br>
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In this case, nowhere is Taylor, Michigan, a city of 65,000 outside

<b>Referendum Requires Ethics Training and Increases Penalties</b><br>
I learned at the COGEL conference last week that a referendum passed in
New York City last month requires all city officials and
employees to receive conflict of interest training. The Conflicts of
Interest Board (COIB) does provide training, but officials and
employees are not required to take it. This change is extremely
valuable.<br>
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If a council member's law firm wants to bid on being the local
government's
attorney, a contract that is approved by the council, what is the
responsible way to handle the matter?<br>
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