Local Government Attorneys

What do the BP oil spill and local government ethics have in common? Kenneth Feinberg.

This week, Feinberg was chosen to work out the BP oil spill claims, and today he is expected to be hired to work out the claims against Maricopa County, home of Phoenix, based on charges of harassment and abuse of power against sheriff Joe Arpaio and former county attorney...

Update: June 18, 2010 (see below)

In a memo dated June 14, 2010 (attached; see below), the Broward County (FL) county attorney told the county commission that lobbying provisions in the county ethics commission's proposed ethics code are unconstitutional and,...

Indefinite benefits, like indirect benefits, are often not dealt with by ethics codes, and this means that they can cause confusion and controversy. This is one reason I tend to speak in terms of "possible conflicts," because possible conflicts based on indefinite benefits can be just as injurious to the public trust as certain conflicts based on certain benefits.

In the current situation in Cincinnati, it is not certain whether the streetcar project will benefit the council member...

A week ago, I wrote about the weaknesses of an ethics initiative in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. This week, in neighboring Lackawanna County, the responses to a March 25 state ethics commission decision has shown truly irresponsible handling of one man's conflicts in two school districts.

Misinformation is rampant in local government ethics. And the less people understand it, the easier it is for the misinformation to be taken at face value.

According to an article in yesterday's Dispatch, in Columbus, a city of 24,000 in eastern Mississippi, one council member's response to a fist fight between the mayor and another council member was to propose an ethics code so that officials...

Failure to disclose or to recuse oneself, even when it is not legally required, can lead to some big headaches, as can be seen in Portland, OR, where a city commissioner voted on a grant to a non-profit organization where his girlfriend works. Also interesting in this case is the commissioner's use of personal ethics rather than professional, government ethics in making his judgment calls.