County Related

One of the wonderful things about local government ethics is that
every mayor or county executive feels qualified to act as if he was
establishing the first local government ethics program ever. It's
sort of like choosing what will go in a bento box, except that there
are no rules (e.g., only one sushi roll, or you've got to have miso or the clear
soup).<br>
<br>
A new bento box is being put together in the infamous Prince

A big controversy surrounding the race for mayor of Honolulu is
focused on the state's pay-to-play culture of the past, and what pay
to play actually is. The reason for this is that a former Hawaii
governor is running for mayor, and he is being supported by Bob Watada, a former
state Campaign Spending Commission executive director who is
known for bringing the state's pay-to-play culture to its knees
during his 1994-2005 term in office.<br>
<br>

I believe that an ethics commission/ethics officer approach to local
government ethics is far better than an inspector general approach. The
simultaneous creation of an EC/EO approach in Palm Beach County, FL
and an IG approach in neighboring Broward County provides a small
laboratory for seeing which works better.<br>
<br>
Thankfully, Brittany Wallman of the <i>Sun-Sentinel</i> has compared the

Luis Toro, director of Colorado Watch, wrote <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luis-toro/the-public-trustee-ethics_b_172…; target="”_blank”">an
interesting Huffington Post post yesterday</a> about ethics issues
relating to Colorado's public trustee system.<br>
<br>
Public trustees (one per county) oversee the foreclosure system in
the state. They work things out between lenders and homeowners. Most

One of the things that really ticks citizens off is when a local
official uses his position to try to get out of a traffic ticket.
The financial benefit may be minor, but there are two
things that are major. One is that this conduct suggests that
favoritism is common in the government. That is, the expectation and provision of special treatment is an indication of
institutional corruption.<br>
<br>
The second thing that can be major is the benefit when the charge is

I have written <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/search/node/luzerne%20pledge&quot; target="”_blank”">three
blog posts</a> criticizing the ethics program created by Luzerne
County, PA in response to one of the <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/689">ugliest scandals in
modern times</a>. Luzerne County finally got its ethics program

Here's an interesting political activity situation out of La Crosse County,
Wisconsin. According to <a href="http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/o-malley-asks-f…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the La Crosse <i>Tribune</i> last week</a>, the county
administrator was involved in supporting a referendum to give the

Imagine that you're a county supervisor with a $92,000 salary and,
despite the salary, you're allowed to hold an outside job (because
the county supervisors before you gave you, and themselves, this opportunity). With a
sizeable salary, there would appear to be no reason to work in any
field that would create an appearance of impropriety.<br>
<br>

Although in 2008, Orange County, Florida's Ethics and Campaign
Finance Reform Task Force recommended (report attached; see below)
that the county have an ethics board selected by a variety of
community organizations, following the model of Miami/Dade County,
and Section 2-457 of the <a href="http://library.municode.com/index.aspx?clientId=10182&quot; target="”_blank”">county
ordinances</a> did provide for (with liberal use of the magic word

For the second time in a year, a local ethics commission has been
the subject of a grand jury report. The first was San Francisco's
(see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/civil-grand-jury-report-san-francisco…; target="”_blank”">my
blog post</a>). There, it was a civil grand jury and the focus was
on the commission. Here and now, it is a criminal grand jury, and