City Related

Assuming you can learn a lot from the mistakes made in local government
ethics matters in cities and towns other than your own, there is a
great deal to learn from a simple ethics matter that, through a number
of mistakes, oversights and, apparently, partisanship has been turned
into a big issue in the city of <a href="http://www.torringtonct.org&quot; target="”_blank”">Torrington</a>
(CT; pop. 36,000). There's also a lesson to be learned about the

"My e-mail boxes are full of angry letters about [former Baltimore
mayor] Dixon's retirement
package being left intact. The deal to resolve this case and get Ms.
Dixon out of office seems to have sparked more public emotion than the
mayor's transgressions." (<a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.rodricks10jan10,0,…

Every bad situation has a nightmare equivalent. The nightmare
equivalent of mayoral misuse of public office and public property for
personal benefit seems to have occurred in the Philippines.<br>
<br>

It's not an unfamiliar story. Council candidates <a href="http://www.ed4yl.com/Contract%20with%20YL.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”">promise ethics
reform</a>. They are elected, and actually fulfill their promises with
a proposed ethics ordinance. But there's not really much to the
proposed ethics ordinance, and there's no enforcement mechanism.<br>
<br>

Political activity by local government employees can be a sign of misuse of office. And when election problems arise, they generally involve local
government employees, as has happened in <a href="http://www.essex-countynj.org/">Essex County</a> (NJ; home of
Newark), according to <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/essex_county_elections_chief_c…

Two months ago, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/2009-local-land-use-ethics-update-now…
pointed
out</a> Patricia Salkin's new <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1493502">summary
of
2009
reported cases</a> dealing with ethical aspects of local government land use matters.

<b>Baltimore Mayor Resigns</b><br>
Baltimore's mayor resigned on Wednesday, fortunately after being
convicted of the crime of embezzlement (albeit for $500 in gift cards)
rather than the ethics violation (not yet tried) of failing to include
gifts on her financial disclosure statement (see <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.plea07j…

It's worth a look at Philadelphia columnist <a href="http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20100106_Dave_Davies__Guts___glor…
Davies' last column</a> after twenty-five years on the job. It's
something rarely seen in the local government ethics world: a hymn of
praise to a local ethics commission, which he calls "a watchdog that
isn't afraid to bite."<br>

New York City's <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/conflicts/html/home/home.shtml">Conflicts
of Interest Board</a> is one of the premier
ethics commissions in the U.S. One would assume that its rules and
procedures would provide an example, as well as guidance, for the rest
of the state. So I would like to look at ethics programs in the other
largest (although not large) cities in the state,
in order by population.<br>

One of the most common mistakes government officials make is to see
recusal as involving only a decision whether or not to vote on a matter
where they have a possible conflict of interest. A Phoenix council member and a
city attorney appear to have made this mistake.<br>
<br>