Last's week's <a href="http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14259091&…; target="”_blank”">Economist</a>
provides a look at a new form of local government ethics enforcement in
China, which exists because local governments have failed to institute
ethics programs. That form of enforcement is murder, and it appears to
be increasingly accepted by the courts.<br>
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If you want to encourage unethical behavior, give individual officials
independent power over the sorts of decisions where people have the
greatest incentive to tempt officials, and officials are in the best position to enforce pay-to-play.<br>
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Here's an interesting potential conflict. Chicago's <a href="http://civicfed.org/&quot; target="”_blank”">Civic Federation</a>, a "non-partisan
government research organization working to maximize the
quality and cost-effectiveness of government services in the Chicago
region and State of Illinois," is asked by the city council to evaluate the
city's 2016 Olympics bid, to make sure that Mayor Daley's Olympic

This morning the Jacksonville City Council finance committee continued their deliberations on each line item of the city's budget. This morning's agenda begins with the Office of General Counsel, which includes the budget for the City's Ethics Officer.

Council members Yarborough & Joost comment that they want to ensure that the office does NOT report to the General Counsel. Mullaney states "Separated out the LEGAL function of Ethics - into a "Legal Counsel" and kept the non-legal aspects of the ethics office separate from the legal.

Saturday, August 29 is the day when the Jacksonville City Council's
finance committee will consider the budget for the city's ethics
office, a big $95,000. There has been talk of using the city's budget
crisis to get rid of the ethics office, but the newspapers and the
city's civic organizations want to preserve the office.<br>
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The city's ethics officer, who will be making a presentation, is Carla
Miller, president of City Ethics. The budget hearing can be viewed live
on Saturday, from

Here's a mind-twister of a situation, from St. Marys City (GA; pop
17,000).
According to <a href="http://www.jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2009-08-26/story/st_marys_city…; target="”_blank”">an
article on jacksonville.com</a>, four members of the city council wrote
the state attorney general asking for a ruling on whether a fifth

One of the most contentious topics in local government ethics is
prohibition vs. disclosure of gifts to officials. As with so many
government ethics issues, the best answer is both, but reaching
the best answer requires a thinking outside the box, along with a
sincere interest in ending pay-to-play, in this case, the use of gifts as a way to reward
officials for past or future conduct.<br>
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One example of such thinking outside the box comes from City Ethics'

Who should pay for a lack of government transparency, the officials
keeping the secrets or the citizens who lack access to information?<br>
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Applicant disclosure is an effective part of local government ethics
that is usually ignored. Usually it is officials who are required to
disclose potential conflicts of interest, either in the form of annual
disclosure statements, revised when circumstances change, or in the
form of announcements that they have a potential conflict and are
withdrawing from involvement in a matter.<br>
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The principal burden should be on officials, but placing an additional
burden on applicants -- such as those seeking zoning changes and

Explaining a political decision on the basis of government ethics, when
that really isn't the reason, can lead to government ethics reform
made on the basis of politics. That's what appears to have happened in
Boerne (TX), a small "city" of 6,000 residents outside San Antonio.<br>
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