Misuse of Office/Special

A post yesterday in Coates' Canons: NC Local Government Law Blog raises an interesting issue about the situation of a local government candidate who has an interest in a contract with the local government which, by NC law, is prohibited not for candidates, but for a winning candidate the day he or she takes office. This provides a good occasion to look at the intersection of candidates and local government ethics...

Everyone knows about ambulance-chasing lawyers, but until reading an article in today's Citizens' Voice of Luzerne County (PA), I had never heard of hearse-chasing deputy coroners. Maybe I would have known about them if I'd watched the TV show Six Feet Under.

According to the article, funeral home directors in...

A trash board member attends a homeowners association meeting to talk about potential changes to the city’s residential trash service. Also in attendance is a representative from the company that has the city's landfill contract. After the trash board member makes a short speech, she leaves the meeting and asks the company representative to answer questions from the audience. This was apparently not planned.

The city's trash collector, under a contract up for renewal and for which...

It's fascinating how different issues are important to local government officials in difference places at different times. I couldn't say that officials will always dig in their heels and fight this ethics provision, or that another ethics provision never raises an eyebrow.

Take Broward County, FL, for example. After numerous arrests and convictions of local officials, the county commission passed a new ethics ordinace, and the county's citizens voted to have this ordinance apply...

Just because it happens in New York City doesn't mean it will happen in the average city or, especially, town. Right? No, it can happen, only the numbers will probably be smaller. Two situations described in today's New York Times, both of them effectively centered on the hiring and failure to oversee consultants, are worth knowing about.

An ethics controversy involving the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) has led to the resignation of four of the seven members of the APS ethics commission, a failure to replace them, and a threat to the schools' accreditation status.