Local Government Attorneys

According to an article in yesterday's Morning Journal, the Law Director of Lorain, OH (a city of 70,000), advising a council member, said, “If his employer had a direct financial interest, he would have a conflict. But it does not.”

A council member who was vice president of a regional firefighters association (a union), although no longer a firefighter...

Many government lawyers feel that the rules of professional conduct are sufficient to keep them ethical. Because of this, they sometimes seek to be excluded from an ethics commission's jurisdiction (see a recent blog post) and more often argue that the attorney discipline system takes precedence. An...

According to an editorial in the Press Democrat, the city council in Santa Rosa (CA), a city of about 150,000 north of San Francisco, has postponed consideration of an ordinance requiring city lobbyists to register, supposedly due to complaints from nonprofits who do not want to pay the $120 fee. (...

(illustration from illegalsigns.ca, Toronto)

I haven't mentioned billboard companies in my blog. It's about time. Billboard companies can be a serious source of apparent impropriety and corruption in local government. And this is an important time for them, because things are changing in the billboard world. It's no longer mostly about old-fashioned billboards along highways. It's digital supergraphics on buildings and all sorts of 21st-century innovations that...

A city creates the position of inspector general in order to root out, and hopefully prevent, corruption. The inspector general decides to investigate a situation. A city attorney is involved. The attorney-client privilege is invoked. The investigation is blocked. And the word goes out:  if you want to hide your corrupt conduct, involve a city attorney. It's that simple.

Update: April 29, 2010 (see below)

The idea of a possible conflict of interest should not be an excuse for a fishing expedition to find relationships between local government legislators and people or contracts they vote on. This appears to be what is happening in Crossville, a town of 9,000 in east-central Tennessee.