Ethics Reform

County Ethics Embraced By Its Cities and Towns
Ethics reform won big in Palm Beach County on Tuesday. The final tallies were published on Friday. According to an article in yesterday's Palm Beach Post, every single city and town in the county voted in favor of applying the county's code to their town. Overall, 72% of voters supported this reform. Even in the town of Palm Beach, whose council and...

Almost two years ago, I wrote about the self-serving nature of attempts at ethics reform in the village of Niles, outside Chicago. A lot has happened since then, but in terms of an ethics program, not much.

According to an article in the Niles Patch, in early October the village's board of ethics agreed, in a 3-2 vote, to send its...

Broward County (FL) voters embraced (3-1) two ethics questions on the ballot yesterday, which applied the new county code of ethics to all municipalities in the county as well as to all constitutional offices (including the sheriff, appraiser, and clerk). They voted 6-1 for the question "Allow counties to show taxpayers the portion of property taxes attributable to constitutional officers." But this...

Hidden in the middle of Question 2 on the New York City ballot this week are two important changes in the city's conflicts of interest law (to my knowledge, the nation's only aptly named ethics code). The current conflicts of interest section of the city charter can be found at pp. 319 ff.

Here's an interesting twist. The mayor of Watervliet, Michigan (pop. 1,900) resigned in protest after the city commission interviewed one of its own members for the apparently paid position of city treasurer, according to an article in the Herald Palladium on Tuesday.

More election-related news. Here are two arguments against an amendment to the Utah constitution that, if approved by voters on November 2, would establish a partially independent legislative ethics commission. The arguments are made in an official ballot issue publication of the state of Utah.

This is the perfect opportunity for educating the public about government ethics. But these...