City Related

According to <a href="http://www.tidewaternews.com/news/2010/jul/30/conflict-interest/&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article
in the Tidewater <i>News</i></a>, a Franklin (VA) council member
said at his first council meeting that he felt the city should stop
charging interest on delinquent property taxes, since so many taxpayers
are under financial duress. The council member happens to be one of

<b>Update:</b> August 2, 2010 (see below)<br>
<br>
I've long said that conflicts of interest should not be limited to
financial interests or, in other terms, situations where a possible
financial benefit or loss is involved (see, for example,<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/conflicts-interest-go-beyond-financia…; target="”_blank”">

<b>Update: September 23, 2010</b> (see below)<br>
<br>
Lack of transparency and voter indifference, especially relating to
technical issues, are often considered minor issues not
central to local government ethics. What happened the last
few years in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell,_California&quot; target="”_blank”">Bell,
California</a> (pop. 37,000; Los Angeles County) should make people

<b>Update</b>: January 11, 2011 (see below)<br>
<br>
According to a July 2 unpublished opinion by Judge Flanagan of the Washoe County (NV)
district court, <i>Carrigan v. Commission on Ethics of the State of Nevada</i>
(attached; see below), a
city council member has a first amendment free speech right to vote
where
there is not "an actual, existing conflict of interest." (p. 13)<br>
<br>
Due process also comes into play in the opinion:  "In the

In researching a recent ethics complaint in <a href="http://www.myharlingen.us/default.aspx?name=homepage&quot; target="”_blank”">Harlingen,
Texas</a> (pop. 67,000), I came across some disturbing ethics matters. The most disturbing can be seen from <a href="http://www.myharlingen.us/docs/1-DevCorp_092909_regmtg.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”">the

If you're a city of a quarter million people with an ethics board that
“has not met in many years and ... is effectively non-existent,”
according to a council member who has proposed a new ethics ordinance,
what do you do?<br>
<br>
Not, I think, what <a href="http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/images/stories/clerk/Introduction_-_July…; target="”_blank”">the
proposed

I hate to see people resign with statements such as this, as typical as they are:
<ul>
While I have been assured that I have violated no existing code,
ordinance or statute, I cannot permit my integrity — and, by
insinuation, Councilwoman Hermann’s — to be attacked.</ul>
Sadly, these are the words of a former Kansas City (MO) ethics

It's important to be careful when it comes to conflicts of interest,
but it's also important not to be <i>too</i> careful. When you're too careful,
you send the wrong message to members of the community and you
miseducate them about government ethics.<br>
<br>
This is what happened this week in my own town of North Haven,
Connecticut.

There's an interesting issue at the heart of a judicial inquiry into
possible misconduct by the mayor of Mississauga, Ontario. The council
sought the inquiry to “investigate any supposed breach of trust or
other misconduct of a Member of Council, an employee of the
municipality or person having a contract with the municipality” and to
inquire into “any matter connected with the good government of the
municipality or the conduct of any part of its public business." In

A situation in the city of Alameda, CA once again points out that government officials dealing with the possibly unethical conduct of other government officials is
not a good thing.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/07/MNT31EAP1D…; target="”_blank”">an
article today in the San Francisco <i>Chronicle</i></a>, the city of Alameda