City Related

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The Dallas ethics reforms described in a<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/dallas-ethics-reform-proposals-go-vot…; target="”_blank”"> recent blog post</a> were passed

An interesting disagreement has arisen over what is required for a contract with a council member to constitute a conflict of
interest in California. According to <a href="http://www.thevalleychronicle.com/articles/2009/11/06/news/doc4af482c18…
article in the Valley <i>Chronicle</i></a>, the city of Hemet and the League
of California Cities disagree with a grand jury about whether a particular council

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/606">past blog posts</a>, I
have focused on the perjury charges against Baltimore mayor Sheila
Dixon that relate to her failure to disclose gifts from a developer who
was seeking tax breaks. But today, Dixon goes on trial for theft
involving gift cards allegedly given to the office of the city council
president, which she filled at the time, and used by her for personal
purchases.<br>
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It's Election Day 2009, so what better topic than a particularly slimy
instance of negative campaigning that attacks a candidate for seeking
an advisory opinion from the local ethics board, and actually following
it.<br>
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According to <a href="http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/68388382.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article</a> on kcrg.com this Sunday, a candidate's flier said that his

It's been over three years since <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/124&quot; target="”_blank”">I wrote</a> about the
conflict situation of San Diego's pension board. Its members were
selected by the city government labor unions and by the city, and they
worked for the city. When an increase in their retirement benefits was
explicitly tied to their approval of a reduction in contributions to

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/council-fiefdoms-and-unethical-behavi…; target="”_blank”">Dallas
council members' control</a> over development in their districts led
earlier this month to the<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/extortion-convictions-dallas-fascinat…; target="”_blank”">

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<b>Update:</b> November 11, 2009 (see below)<br>
<br>
Is there any worse way to skirt government ethics rules and misuse
public money and position than via a charitable organization? And yet
it
happens again and again. This time it happened in Baltimore, according

Here are two interesting local government ethics case studies from
matters in the news this week.<br>
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<b>A Job Can Effectively Be a Gift</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/oct/22/in-brief-woman-reports-rap…; target="_blank">an
article in the <i>Spokesman-Review</i></a>,

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/legal-defense-funds-misuse-office-and…
talked</a> about legal defense funds in the past as a way to accept
large gifts from those doing business with a local government, but I
referred, tangentially, to only one local government legal
defense fund, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/411">that of

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<b>Updates:</b> November 28, 2009 (see below, with December 23 correction)<br>
<br>
When a local government official co-owns a company, is it enough to
create a separate company owned solely by another co-owner to do
business with the official's city?<br>
<br>