Ethics News from San Diego
There's a lot of ethics news from San Diego today. First, the judge in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/important-local-campaign-finance-deci…; target="”_blank”">the
San Diego campaign finance case</a> has <a href="http://electionlawblog.org/archives/clarification%20order.pdf" target="”_blank”">clarified
his ruling</a>. <br>
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Second, the case involving the former president of the Center City Development
Corp. is going to a hearing before the San Diego ethics commission next
week. The <a href="http://www.sandiego.gov/ethics/pdf/ngrahamfac.pdf" target="”_blank”">allegations
of the EC's general counsel</a> list 34 counts of influencing a
municipal decision when it was reasonably foreseeable that the decision
would have a material financial impact on the former CCDC president's economic interests. The
34 counts are instances of her participation in matters where
she is alleged to have had a conflict.<br>
<br>
I had written in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/587" target="”_blank”">an
earlier blog post</a> that this matter was being dealt with by the
district attorney as a criminal case (he could not prove a conflict
beyond a reasonable doubt, settling for a misdemeanor plea of failure
to disclose), and that it would not be going before the EC, but I was
clearly wrong.<br>
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Finally, here's something you don't see every day: a <a href="http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/feb/12/city-ethics-commission-challenged/…; target="”_blank”">discussion
of government ethics among local newspaper editors.</a> The discussion was sparked by a San Diego council member's criticisms
of the city's ethics commission (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/san-diego-more-tension-between-ec-and…; target="”_blank”">my blog post</a> on the criticisms). You can read the discussion or listen to it (13 minutes long).<br>
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Topics that arise include selection of EC members (there's apparently
an attempt to take this away from elected officials), underfunding the
EC, control of the EC budget, the use of the word "ethics" in the name
of a body that primarily handles campaign finance laws, the complexity
of the campaign finance laws, equal treatment by the EC, transparency,
public financing, and the value of having a city EC. No depth clearly,
but a lot of breadth in this unusual discussion.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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