In my <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/fishing-conflicts&quot; target="”_blank”">most
recent
blog post</a>, I pointed out how vague the concept of an "interest" is
for most people. I would
like to discuss this problem further, because I think it is the cause
of much misunderstanding, as well as weaknesses in ethics code drafting.<br>
<br>

<b>Update</b>: April 29, 2010 (see below)<br>
<br>
The idea of a possible conflict of interest should not be an excuse for
a fishing expedition to find relationships between local government
legislators and people or contracts they vote on. This appears to be
what is happening in Crossville, a town of 9,000 in east-central
Tennessee.<br>
<br>

It would be easy to say that politics is a team sport, like football,
while ethics is an individual sport, like tennis. But this simply isn't
true. Both ethical behavior and unethical behavior can be done as a
team.<br>
<br>

Government ethics e-newsletters are a good source of ideas, and something worth considering for your local government's ethics commission or ethics officer. <a href="http://www.atlantaga.gov/client_resources/government/boards/board_of_et…; target="”_blank">Atlanta's
new
spring 2010 newsletter</a>, <i>Ethics Matters</i>, is a good example of what such an e-newsletter can do.<br>
<br>

<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