No one does unethics like Chicago. It's been four months since I've
written about the city, so it's long overdue.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1670645,CST-NWS-oconnor17.article…; target="”_blank”">a
recent article in the Chicago <span>Sun-Times</span></a><span>, </span>Alderman Patrick O'Connor is the

One problem local governments have in drafting ethics codes is that
they want it to be too many things, to serve too many purposes. They
want it to be an aspirational code of conduct, making local government
more civil and government officials more honest and fair. They want it
to make officials follow all relevant laws and constitutional
provisions. And they want it to deal with conflicts of interest, that
is, with the situations where personal interests may be placed above
the public interest.<br>
<br>

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/806&quot; target="”_blank”">a blog post</a>
yesterday, I noted that North Carolina was soon to require local
governments to pass ethics codes. I've now found out more about the
proposed law, and it is disappointing, to say the least.<br>
<br>

What just happened in San Diego, according to <a href="http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/15/1m15ethics00931-mayo…; target="”_blank”">an
article in yesterday's<span> Union-Tribune</a>,</span>
is a lesson for local government ethics commission members,
especially commission chairs, and even more especially chairs who speak

Last week, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/800&quot; target="”_blank”">I wrote</a>
about municipal corruption scandals in Montreal. This week, I'm happy
to be able to write about a report requested by the province of Quebec,
which determined that the province's municipalities should all have a
code of ethics (only about 10% do now), that the largest cities and the
counties should have ethics commissioners, and that financial

<b>See update below:</b><br>
An issue that arises in many local governments involves campaign
contributions from local government employees, which often appear to be
coerced or required, that is, they appear to result from a misuse of
office by elected officials. Often, it appears that the giving occurs
because employees are concerned about keeping their jobs. This
concern includes concern about retaliation as well as concern about
what will happen if the candidate loses.<br>
<br>

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/803&quot; target="”_blank”">yesterday's miscellany</a>,
I talked about an ethics commission member conflicted due to having
played a role in the campaign of an official brought before the
commission. There are two ways to deal with such a conflict. One is to
deal with it like any conflict, when it arises. The other is to prevent
the conflict from occurring.<br>
<br>

<b>Ethics Reform and Ethics
Environments</b><br>
This weekend, the <span>Press-Enterprise</span>
ran <a href="http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/editorials/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_…; target="”_blank”">an
excellent editorial </a>about ethics reform in San Bernardino County.
Not only do the editors recognize that watered-down, "symbolic" ethics

<b>Update</b> - July 31, 2009 - see below<br>
In my April <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/707&quot; target="”_blank”">blog post</a>
about the legislative immunity defense made by a former Baltimore
council member (now the mayor), I felt that her arguments didn't have a
chance. Well, I was wrong. I was wrong primarily because I thought that
a state prosecutor would be determined to see the case through and,

As I have noted again and again, there is no more difficult, conflicted
role than that of a local government attorney. In small towns, there's
not a lot that can be done. But in cities and counties, there are
several things that can be done to lessen the local government
attorney's conflicts.<br>
<br>