It is worth noting that the respondent member of the Stamford board of
finance in the matter covered in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/not-withdrawing-responsible-way-deal-…; target="”_blank”">the
preceding blog post</a> raised both a
legislative immunity and a First Amendment free speech defense in his federal court

There are times when withdrawing from a vote is in fact not a
responsible act, but rather an act in one's own self-interest. In such
a case, a responsible official should participate and do what is in the
public interest.<br>
<br>

According to <a href="http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_17368046&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article in Friday's San Bernardino <i>Sun</i></a>, a San Bernardino city council member accused
of a conflict of interest resigned. He owned a towing company whose
major source of income is a contract with the city. The contract was

Despite the title of his essay "What Chance of Ethics in the Globalized
World of Consumers?" <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_Bauman&quot; target="”_blank”">Zygmunt Bauman</a>
has some valuable things to say that are relevant to government ethics

<b>Ethics Reform as Part of a Financial Assistance Deal</b><br>
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/applying-pay-play-ordinance-trenton&q…; target="”_blank”">Earlier
this week I wrote</a> about the application of Trenton's pay-to-play

There are people who get great satisfaction going after the ethics of
government ethics professionals. Rarely are their accusations relevant
to government ethics; it's just about showing that we're not good
people, either, as if government ethics was just about good and bad.
Maybe we should wear t-shirts that say, on the front, "We're Not
Perfect," and on the back, "So?"<br>
<br>

Yes, boys and girls, it's time for another episode of every government
ethics lover's favorite tale, Vernon and the Dragons. In the last
episode, back in November, the dragon known as Los Angeles County was
considering a proposal to require the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California&quot; target="”_blank”">city of Vernon</a> to competitively bid housing
for the city, which houses very few people, and mostly friends of government

Local governments cannot afford to do the level of due
diligence that corporate compliance offices do on a regular basis. But
it is worth looking at how corporate compliance offices and corporate
executives deal with other entities that are found to be

<b>Update:</b> February 10, 2011 (see below)<br>
<br>
Trenton's city attorney and mayor have been going through an elaborate
dance in the last week, since the city attorney decided to void a
contract between the city and a law firm that made a large contribution

Usually, in government
ethics situations, local officials can get away with doing nothing,
especially when the conflict isn't theirs. Few ethics codes have
provisions prohibiting complicity in and requiring the reporting of
others' ethics violations (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/full-text-model-ethics-code#0.1_TOC49…; target="”_blank”">the
City