In February, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/search/node/%22nonviolence%20and%20government…

Transparency in government should not be limited only to officials.
Disclosure rules should also apply to everyone seeking special benefits from government, such as
contracts, permits, or grants. For one thing, without transparency
on both sides of every transaction, it is impossible for the public or officials to know if
there are any conflicts that particular officials need to deal with.<br>
<br>
One popular way to get around transparency is the shell company. A
company can easily be set up so that its ownership is secret. This

No one wants a political government ethics program, and yet the
people who most often worry out loud that it will be political want
it to be political. This apparent paradox can be explained by looking at the
various meanings of the word "political." Which of these meanings is
most important to a government ethics program, and which of them
are, well, "just politics"? And what can a government ethics program do to lessen politics?<br>
<br>

Canadian mayors don't appear to be having a good time of it lately,
ethicswise. <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/high-level-officials-obligation-seek-…; target="”_blank”">Montreal's

Annapolis is an unusual little city in many ways. It may only have 40,000
residents, but it's the state capital, the county seat, the home of
the U.S. Naval Academy, and equidistant, and not far, from Baltimore
and Washington, D.C. With respect to government ethics, the county
for which it is the county seat, Anne Arundel County, has <a href="http://www.aacounty.org/ethics/index.cfm&quot; target="”_blank”">a relatively good

In a quality government ethics program, every official and employee
involved in a matter publicly discloses any possible conflict and
withdraws from the matter. But what if a city or county does not
have a quality government ethics program? How is the public to know
whether conflicts are being handled responsibly?<br>
<br>

On November 29, Florida State University’s LeRoy Collins
Institute and the new good government group Integrity Florida
released <a href="http://www.integrityfl.org/county-ethics-report/&quot; target="”_blank”">a report
entitled "Florida Counties Bridge the Ethics Policy Gap"</a>,
which<em> </em>analyzes the results of a survey of government
ethics programs and reforms in 45 of Florida’s 67 counties.<br>
<br>

When the economy is booming, local government
corruption feeds off the sale of government land, development
projects, and construction contracts. When the economy is doing
poorly, there is usually less money floating around to fund
corruption. But in bad times, local governments are willing to
accept the help of companies and nonprofits, which might have (or appear to have) their
own interests at stake in what they fund for local governments.
This leads to another set of problems.<br>
<br>

<a href="http://www.acluct.org/issues/studyfindsdeficientpolicec.htm&quot; target="”_blank”">An
eye-opening report was published this week</a> by the American
Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. The report was based on a
survey of all the state's police departments regarding the filing of
complaints. Although complaints filed by the public against police
officers rarely involve conflicts of interest, some of the findings

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/misuse-local-office-regional-board&qu…; target="”_blank”">In
October, I wrote a blog post</a> about a report commissioned by
the <a href="http://www.wmata.com/&quot; target="”_blank”">Washington Metropolitan Area
Transit Authority</a> (WMATA), based on an investigation of an