County Related

Vernon, CA, the subject of several blog posts here (click here for the latest), has been the object of criminal investigations, but now local officials are starting to get creative in response to the most creatively imagined city in the U.S.

Update: December 16, 2012 (see below)

The news has been full of information about billionaires sponsoring, secretly and publicly, independent ads supporting and attacking candidates as well as ballot initiatives. For instance, according to a new report from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, the top 20 richest Americans and...

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...

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...

I learned recently that the Luzerne County (PA) ethics pledge movement, which I wrote about in May and September, is complemented by a draft charter which is to be approved or...

All ethics oversight cannot be done by an ethics commission. Much oversight needs to be done outside of the complaint process. Even when complaints are made, a lack of proper oversight can leave a big hole in the facts available to an EC. I came across such a situation in yesterday's Bristol (VA) News.