After ten years of blogging and book and model code writing, having completed <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/publications/draft-chapter-on-lobbying" target="_blank">my
book on local lobbying oversight</a> and accomplished my writing
goals at City Ethics, I have decided to bring an end to my work on
local government ethics in my role as Director of Research-Retired. <br>
<br>
My greatest regrets are:<br>
<br>
1. There appears to be no one to continue my work. No young person has shown
interest (at least to me) in researching and writing about local
government conflicts of interest.<br>
<br>
2. I failed to get a discussion going, online or elsewhere,
about local government ethics issues. I did not set out to
monologue.<br>
<br>
3. Very few local government officials, almost no local government
attorneys, and even few good government organizations have contacted
me for advice on, or even to brainstorm about, local government
ethics issues or approaches to reform.<br>
<br>
On the other hand, some of the best practices I have described have
been instituted in cities and counties throughout the United States.
There has been improvement in local government ethics programs, and
there are more programs than when I began to write. However, the
improvements have been piecemeal and patchy, and there has been
little conscious experimentation. I still maintain that a mediocre
ethics program can be worse than having none at all, because it
gives the appearance that something is being done when, in fact,
there is no independent ethics advice, no worthwhile training, no
disclosure, and no independent enforcement.<br>
<br>
One must always keep in mind that government ethics is the only area
of government regulation that regulates the private behavior of the
individuals who draft the regulations. Focused on the responsible
handling of conflicts of interest, it begins with a conflict of
interest and, unsurprisingly, because these conflicts are not responsibly handled, there are usually conflicts of
interest at the center of government ethics programs (including the
involvement of government attorneys, a lack of transparency, and the
appointment of ethics commission members and even staff, and funding
of the program, by those under its jurisdiction). When a scandal
arises and nothing is done (even when this is the appropriate
response), government ethics programs can, therefore, seem as
compromised as the officials involved in the scandal.<br>
<br>
We are still in the infancy of government ethics reform. There are
few in academia who show interest in government ethics (except to
criticize the notion of local government ethics programs), there are
few in national and state good government organizations who show
interest in local government ethics, and there are no agreed-upon
best practices nor is there public discussion of what they should
be.<br>
<br>
I hope that my publications and blog posts will continue to be of
help to those who do care. However, I will not be updating them and
I will not be available for further advice or brainstorming. But
City Ethics' Carla Miller will be, and I hope that one or more young
people will come along to continue my work.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler
<br><br>