When Mayor John Peyton decided to hire Carla Miller as Jacksonville’s
Ethics Officer in 2007, the city was in crisis. A grand jury was
investigating violations of state open-meeting laws by nearly every
member of the former City Council. The FBI had begun sniffing around
JaxPort, probing dubious contracts and allegations of influence
peddling. The city had spent $36.5 million to develop the old Shipyards
site, with nothing to show for it. It had spent another $26.8 million
on the courthouse with similar results.

One of my pet peeves is that many if not most local government ethics codes limit the
definition of "conflict of interest" to situations where an official's
interest involves money. But there are many personal interests that create a
conflict, even though no money is involved.<br>

I recommend <a href="http://www.icma.org/pm/9009/public/pmplus1.cfm?&quot; target="”_blank”">an
essay by Donald Menzel</a> from the October issue of PM, the magazine of
the International City-County Management Association (ICMA), entitled
"Strengthening Ethical Governance in Local Governments." Menzel is a
former president of the American Society for Public Administration,
author of <i>Ethics

When is a conflict sufficient to require an official to resign (or not
take a position in the first place)? This question involves a lot of
gray area, and little black and white. What sorts of interest are
enough to undermine
public trust, and what sorts of interest provide opportunities for
officials to benefit unfairly from their positions? Here are three
recent situations where an official's external job was seen or not seen
as creating a conflict serious enough to require resignation.<br>

Move over, presidents, movie stars, and models. Welcome a local
government ethics officer to your ranks.<br>
<br>
Yes, at last a local government ethics officer's picture is on the
cover of a magazine. The ethics officer is City Ethics' own Carla
Miller, and the magazine is Northeast Florida's <span><a href="http://www.folioweekly.com/&quot; target="”_blank”">Folio

Ethics training is a problem at the local level. It's expensive, and
there aren't many experienced local government ethics trainers around.
Online ethics training has recently become the answer, but even this is

So much of government ethics involves the contrast, and sometimes the
collision, between ethics and law. Too often the personal aspect of
government ethics is overlooked. All three get twisted together in a
very simple matter that occurred last week in the Escondido (CA) city
council, according to <a href="http://www.northcountytimes.com/articles/2009/01/31/news/inland/escondi…; target="”_blank”">an

Sometimes, those who write or amend local government ethics codes forget to make it
clear exactly who is covered by an ethics code. Sometimes there is
discussion about who should have to file annual disclosure statements,
and sometimes there is discussion about whether volunteers should be
covered. But too often individuals and bodies not central to local
government are ignored.<br>

When it really comes down to it (and it usually does), what is the
greatest enemy of trust in government, or anywhere else for that
matter? Greed, power, ego, loyalty? I'd put my money on (or against)
rationalization, the ability of people to justify what they do and fail
to do.<br>

It's hard not to get excited about our new president when he says and
does the right things when it comes to government ethics. In <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/FreedomofInformationAct/&quot; target="”_blank”">a
memo</a> to heads of executive departments and agencies, President
Obama wrote:<ul>