Patricia Salkin's Local Government Ethics Blogs

For a year and a half, in her Law of the Land blog, Patricia Salkin has been writing about local government ethics issues in land use cases. And since December 2008, she has been writing occasional local government ethics posts for the International Municipal Lawyers Association Local Government Blog. With Judy Nadler's blog idle since November, Ms. Salkin is the only other game in towns (sic).

And it's a well-played game. Salkin is Associate Dean, Professor of Law, and Director of the Government Law Center at Albany Law School. She does an excellent job of combining her specialties in land use law and government ethics. Besides her blog and numerous land use law publications, she is the author of several law review articles and essays on government ethics, and a second edition of her edited volume, Ethical Standards in the Public Sector: A Guide for Government Lawyers, Clients, and Public Officials (Am. Bar Assoc.) came out recently (if you believe the publisher) or is scheduled to come out next month (if you believe Amazon.com, where the overpriced book is substantially cheaper; see the ABA site for the book's table of contents).

Our blogs rarely cover the same material. Salkin's focus is primarily on judicial decisions, and her tone is far more lawyerly than mine. In one case where we dealt with the same material, New York's Wind Industry Ethics Code, I critiqued the language of the code and she focused on jurisdictional issues. She also went into more detail on this code in an essay published in the Winter 2009 issue of New York State's Municipal Lawyer Newsletter. The essay's subtitle is "A Back-Door Approach to Regulating Municipal Ethics." It's very worthwhile reading.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

---