Misuse of Office/Special

The Grants of a Conflicted Board of Insiders
Sometimes conflicts can cause a city or county serious problems with such things as state and federal grants. This is what has happened in Brockton, MA (pop. 94,000), according to an article in the Enterprise-News.

The board of the city's...

Misuse of government resources, nepotism, transparency, and the obligations of government attorneys are all issues in litigation over a village's secret use of a contaminated well for 20% of the village's water supply, according to an article in Sunday's Chicago Tribune.

I don't usually use examples from Congress, but this one is too good, and instructive. According to yesterday's New York Times, Billy Tauzin, when he was a Louisiana congressional representative, started two hunting clubs, whose memberships included primarily lobbyists and executives of companies with business before the committee he chaired, the energy and commerce committee.

Some situations clearly involve a conflict of interest, but are not dealt with in a local government ethics code. Two issues arise. One is the quality of the local government ethics code. The other is whether the code matters at all, if the conflict is clear.

Such a situation exists with respect to a council member in Bellevue, WA, a Seattle suburb, with the extra twist that the city's ethics code applies to employees, and the state ethics code applies to council members.

It's been almost two years since the New York Times broke the story on the abuses of New York City council earmarks slush fund, which totaled about $50 million a year. This week, the council member featured in the Times article was expelled from the state senate for a violent act committed against his female companion, according to...

India and China have not only been the home of new varieties of entrepreneurialism. In these countries, creative individuals have also come up with novel approaches to dealing with local government corruption.

An expatriate Indian physics professor in the U.S. came up with the brilliant idea of a Zero-Rupee Note to hand out in situations where local officials expect or ask for bribes.