Contractors and Vendors

Several interesting issues arise from a recent ethics case in Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans with about 430,000 people. According to an article in the Advocate yesterday, an employee of a large parish contractor sent the following e-mail to a council member's aide, who forwarded it to the council member:

“I would like to schedule a meeting with Councilman Spears...

According to a New Mexico Telegram article, four Albuquerque contractors sued the city's ethics board, claiming that a 2007 charter provision banning contributions from contractors violates their free speech rights.

Here's a link to the contractors' complaint. And...

In Hawaii, "Aloha" is not just a greeting. It also is a way of treating people, of thanking them. In other words, it often involves a gift. That explains the headline of a Honolulu Civil Beat article yesterday, "Can Too Much Aloha Be a Bad Thing? Ask Hawaii's Ethics Commission."

As in so many state and local governments, elected...

Lawyers and confidentiality can both be serious obstacles to the effectiveness of a government ethics program. An ethics case in Trumbull, CT provides a good look at how this can happen.

Attorneys on an Ethics Commission
According to an article in the Trumbull Times last week and...

According to a column in today's New York Times and a visit to the New York City Business Integrity Commission's (BIC) website, the BIC provides three easy lessons in how not to run an oversight commission. The BIC has jurisdiction over the private waste carting industry,...

This week, San Antonio's mayor and city attorney proposed a number of reforms to the city's ethics code and campaign finance regulations. I will deal here only with the ethics reforms. A summary of the proposed reforms and a red-lined copy of the ethics code are attached (see below).

The impetus for these reforms is a matter I discussed in a blog post last...