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I also write a blog relating to my town's government. One purpose for starting the blog, and its sister information website (the town's website is so limited, it doesn't even include town ordinances, the town's code of ethics, or the town charter), was to create a model that could be used by people in other towns who are faced with an administration that is closed and acts unethically. I...

Usually an ethics pledge is something required of a town official or something requested by a good government organization. But sometimes an ethics pledge is an election strategy.

This is the case in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the state legislature's Government Administration and Elections co-chair Christopher Caruso and his Citizens for Real Change slate of candidates took an ethics pledge earlier this month.

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My first experience with municipal politics in New Jersey, where I lived for nine years before moving to Connecticut, was accompanying some neighbors to a council meeting, because a couple of them wanted to speak about a change in zoning that affected the street we lived on. A neighbor asked the mayor when they could speak, and was told people would be alerted when it came time to speak. The council debated the issue and then, without a pause, started to vote on it. I rose in protest and had...

In an article published in the Jacksonville Daily Record on Thursday, Carla Miller revealed her plans as the City's new Ethics Officer:
'In a very large city like Jacksonville you can't say that every single person who comes into government will be an ethical and honest person, so it comes down to the control systems. I teach with Michael Josephson in 'Character Counts' and he calls it 'The Law of Big Numbers'....