The business coalition in Palm Beach County (FL) really gets it. One
reason is that City Ethics' Carla Miller has provided advice. The
coalition consists of Leadership Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach
County Business Forum, the Palm Beach County Economic Council, and the
Voters Coalition. Its positions are best stated in <a href="http://www.lwvpbc.org/LWV_article.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”">a short essay</a>

Preferential treatment is one of the most difficult ethics provisions
to deal with, because it seems on its face so open-ended. Every time a
decision is made, someone is preferred over someone else, whether it's
a hiring decision, a contract award, or a zoning change. But if these
decisions are made fairly and through the appropriate legal process,
there is no preferential treatment.<br>
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One of the most difficult things for a government official to do is to
determine whether his or her conduct creates an appearance of
impropriety. Partially blinded by ego, surrounding yes-people, and the
government's ethical culture, an official often finds nothing
wrong with conduct that many or even most outsiders -- that is,
citizens -- find questionable or downright wrong. It is hard for them to put themselves in citizen shoes in order to see whether their conduct might appear improper.<br>
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Undisclosed conflicts can cause a lot of problems, but rarely are they
a matter of life and death. In Collin County, TX, north of Dallas, an
undisclosed conflict could have been responsible for a man's death
sentence (and, perhaps, many more sentences).<br>
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Privatizing local government functions can cause conflict of interest
problems, but at least contractors can be held to contracts and
replaced when they run afoul of ethics or other laws or requirements.
The same is not necessarily true when non-profit organizations take
over local government functions not as contractors or grant recipients
(as with social service agencies), but as partial or full replacements.<br>
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Accusing someone of a conflict of interest can lead to trouble,
especially if the person you accuse is a litigious lawyer and you do it outside of an ethics proceeding. This is what
one can read from a $5 million suit filed by a former town attorney
against the town of <a>Victor, NY</a> 
(pop. 10,000) and a member of the town's planning board.<br>
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Many local government ethics codes define a
conflict of interest as existing only when an official stands to receive a
financial benefit from his or her action or inaction. But real and perceived
conflicts exist even when there is no financial benefit to an official.
Important examples include benefits to relatives and business
associates, where the official only benefits indirectly, while others
benefit directly.<br>
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A new argument has been made in the legislative immunity part of the
case against a Baltimore council member who is now the mayor. In a
memorandum to dismiss a new indictment (attached; see below), filed on
September 8, the mayor has argued, on pages 3-10, that testimony by
someone who attended events which the mayor attended in her legislative
capacity cannot be used against her.<br>
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This is an interesting extension of the argument that legislative
immunity prevents any evidence to be introduced regarding a

<a href="http://www.dupageco.org/&quot; target="”_blank”">DuPage County, IL</a>, a county of
nearly a million people just outside Chicago (its largest town is
Naperville), is juggling two ethics ordinance revision processes, one
for the county, the other for the county election commission. Both
appear to have attracted some controversy.<br>
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There is little in government ethics that is more important than
recognizing that, unlike other laws, an ethics code provides only
minimum standards. That is, a public servant is required to fulfill the
letter of an ethics code, but this is just the start. In this way,
ethics laws are not like ordinary laws. Why and in what way? Here are two different
responses.<br>
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