In the news

Update below
Recently, I wrote a bit about the odd Venice, FL ethics program, which puts the city manager completely in charge. Now Venice is making news with respect to open government issues, and this has led to a very interesting conflict of interest issue.

According to an article in Friday's Sarasota...

I've always felt torn with respect to whether citizens should be allowed to ask for advisory opinions that have to do with local government officials, as can be seen in the advisory opinion provision and comments in the City Ethics Model Code Project.

On the one hand, advisory opinions are generally seen as dealing with the requestor's conduct, which I think is why most ethics codes limit requests to city...

An article deep in the first section of this Sunday's New York Times presents an interesting ethical dilemma. In New York State, it used to be common for state troopers and local police officers to negotiate, effectively plea bargain, at the courthouse with people they'd given tickets to. And then, in 2006, the State Police set a policy banning this practice. The grounds for the practice are...

What could provide a better education for local government ethics practitioners than reading through a greatly expanded 261-page list of all the cases the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board has decided or settled from 1992 through last week? The ethics provisions may not be the same as everywhere, but the problems usually are.

Agreeing on the local government budget is the most important thing that the government does every year, because it affects every department and agency. But with the exception of the big issues of the year, it's a pretty arcane process often accomplished behind closed doors. Thus, it provides excellent opportunities for unethical conduct, very little of it dealt with in ethics codes.

A city full of casinos has no need for an ethics board, right? Well, according to an article in yesterday's Press of Atlantic City, that's the decision the Atlantic City council made last week.