Is it important that an ethics complaint be based on information
that is known personally? Some ethics codes require this. But the
fact is that many ethics violations are done secretly. It can take
some serious, professional investigation to obtain the facts and
relevant documents. This is why investigations by journalists are so
valuable. What they uncover is often used by citizens, good
government organizations, and others as the basis for an ethics
complaint. And sometimes a government employee who has suspected

(<b>Note:</b> This post has been revised, based on a response from Steve Berlin, executive director of Chicago's ethics board. I had made the silly assumption that the underlined language in the ethics reform ordinance was new. It turns out that much of that language has been there for some time. So I've deleted some comments and made changes to others.)<br>
<br>
Recently, the Chicago council passed a series of ethics reforms
(attached; see below) in response to the first report of the city's

When it comes to post-employment restrictions, a mayor should not be
considered as just a member of the legislative or executive branch, no
matter what the form of government (strong mayor or mayor-council).
A mayor has a special status that sets her apart from other local
officials. Post-employment restrictions that apply only to one's
branch or agency should not be relevant to a mayor. During the
cooling-off period, a mayor should not do business with or lobby the
government at all.<br>
<br>

A big controversy surrounding the race for mayor of Honolulu is
focused on the state's pay-to-play culture of the past, and what pay
to play actually is. The reason for this is that a former Hawaii
governor is running for mayor, and he is being supported by Bob Watada, a former
state Campaign Spending Commission executive director who is
known for bringing the state's pay-to-play culture to its knees
during his 1994-2005 term in office.<br>
<br>

<b>Ethics Code Amendment Without a Scandal</b><br>
Sometimes conflict situations, when they are handled responsibly,
lead to changes in an ethics code. This happened recently in Prince
William County, Virginia, according to <a href="http://www2.insidenova.com/news/2012/jul/25/gainesville-supervisor-pres…; target="”_blank”">an
article on the insidenova.com website</a>.<br>

I believe that an ethics commission/ethics officer approach to local
government ethics is far better than an inspector general approach. The
simultaneous creation of an EC/EO approach in Palm Beach County, FL
and an IG approach in neighboring Broward County provides a small
laboratory for seeing which works better.<br>
<br>
Thankfully, Brittany Wallman of the <i>Sun-Sentinel</i> has compared the

Should council members do business with each other or with the
mayor? Another way to put this question is, does their doing business together give rise to a
conflict of interest?<br>
<br>
The situation that gave rise to these questions came out recently in

<b>Update</b>: August 9, 2012 (see below)<br>
<br>
People tend to think that all good government people are alike. The
thinking goes that those who favor the improvement of ethics
programs also favor such things as term limits, referendums and
initiatives, and pension forfeiture by those found to have violated
the public's trust. As a matter of fact, I don't favor any of these other good
government approaches.<br>
<br>
The one I want to talk about in this blog

Here's an all too common scenario:  A local government
creates an ethics program after a scandal, and time passes either
without another scandal or with a change of administration. The new
administration sees the ethics program as unnecessary, and decides
not to fund the program and not to replace ethics commission members who resign
or whose terms run out. The ethics program remains on the books, but
there is no training, advice, disclosure, or enforcement of the

Luis Toro, director of Colorado Watch, wrote <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luis-toro/the-public-trustee-ethics_b_172…; target="”_blank”">an
interesting Huffington Post post yesterday</a> about ethics issues
relating to Colorado's public trustee system.<br>
<br>
Public trustees (one per county) oversee the foreclosure system in
the state. They work things out between lenders and homeowners. Most