<a href="http://www.albanylaw.edu/sub.php?navigation_id=157&user_id=64&quot; target="”_blank”">Patricia
Salkin</a>, director of the Government Law Center at the Albany Law
School and author of the <a href="http://lawoftheland.wordpress.com/&quot; target="”_blank”">Law

Gray areas in local government ethics don't necessarily have to be gray
areas.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/councilman-says-hell-vote-467804.html&q…; target="”_blank”">an
article last week in the Atlanta <i>Journal-Constitution</i></a>, a council
member whose brother is a lieutenant in the city jail has been very

Pennsylvanians have, for some time, been entertained with a scandal called Bonusgate,
which involves state legislative staff not only being used for
campaigns, but getting bonuses, which makes a common practice appear
even uglier. The ugliness has recently increased in intensity: 
defense counsel for two of the legislators is accusing the attorney
general (who instituted the criminal actions) of doing the very
same thing, without the bonuses. And the
attorney general, of a different political party than the great
majority of the

<br>
City Ethics' president and Jacksonville ethics officer, Carla Miller,
is taking best practices to a new level in Florida. She is organizing a statewide local government ethics swap meeting, where local
government ethics officials will share information and talk about
swapping software and programs.<br>
<br>

This is the eighth and last in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”"><i>Moral
Clarity:
A

Officials soliciting charitable contributions from those doing business
before them is unethical conduct too many ethics codes allow, often
expressly. Miami-Dade County has in its ethics code what appears at
first to be a very reasonable exception to the definition of a gift:<br>
<ul>
§2-11.1(2)(2)(g) Gifts solicited by Commissioners on behalf of any
nonprofit organization for use solely by that organization where
neither the Commissioner nor his or her staff receives any compensation

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”"><i>Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</i></a> (Princeton, 2008). Neiman’s discussion of Daniel Ellsberg, the government official who let us know

Today I came across the <a href="http://www.mrsc.org/index.aspx&quot; target="”_blank”">Municipal
Research and Services Center of Washington</a> (State) website. MRSC is
"private, non-profit organization based in Seattle," whose mission is
"to promote excellence in Washington local government through
professional consultation, research and information services."<br>
<br>

Back in Chicago, where in February the mayor called for the inspector
general (appointed by the mayor) to have jurisdiction over the city
council (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/camels-back-truly-broken-or-just-more…; target="”_blank”">my
blog post</a>), the council is now moving toward a council-wide vote on
its own inspector general.<br>
<br>

What
do you do when an official discriminates against you by sicking a local
government inspector on you? This question was raised by David Owens in<span> </span><a href="http://sogweb.sog.unc.edu/blogs/localgovt/?p=2220&quot; target="”_blank”">a post on the
NC Local Government Law Blog.</a><br>
<br>