A conflict controversy in Benson, Arizona shows how important
participation can be where there is a conflict, even when an official
does not vote. According to <a href="http://www.bensonnews-sun.com/articles/2008/08/20/news/news01.txt&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article in the San Pedro Valley News-Sun</a>, the mayor was in escrow
to purchase property for which he was seeking to (and successfully did)

Local election officials have been put in a bind since the Help America
Vote Act (HAVA) was passed by Congress in 2002. Federal and state
requirements limit their control over voting processes, and there have been
many problems with the companies that provide voting equipment and
services. Besides the pains of dealing with these companies from a

Campaign contributions are not generally considered to be bribes, but
the perception of large campaign contributions from local government contractors is
often that they are payments for contracts past or future, what is
known in the government ethics business as "pay-to-play."<br>
<br>
For this reason, state and local governments have taken a variety of
approaches toward dealing with this perception. The most common
response is disclosure, for example, requiring local government contractors to

<p>2006-06-21</p>

<p><a href="files/2006-06-21-Ethics Camp-NY Times Article.pdf"><img src="files/pdf.gif" />  New York Times Article: "<em>At Ethics Camp, Not-So-Tall Tales From the Dark Side</em>"</a></p>

<p>2006-06-21</p>

Tomorrow, I am going to Guantanamo Bay. To get there, I have to drive
through Guantanamo Bay.<br>
<br>
How could that be? For the same reason that you might be sitting in
Guantanamo Bay as you read this:  because innocent people are

Ted Stevens has been indicted for falsely reporting over $250,000 in
services he received from an oil company that renovated his home. He
denies the charges.<br>
<br>
Whether or not he's guilty of these charges, he is certainly guilty of
a conflict of interest that plagues politicians at all levels of
government:  identifying himself with his constituency, and
abusing his power to benefit his constituents, to his own benefit, at
the expense of others whose representatives lack that power.<br>
<br>

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/464&quot; target="”_blank”">a recent blog entry</a>,
I looked at how a couple of Connecticut towns are using the Internet to
get citizen feedback and provide transparency. But some cities have
gone much further, according to <a href="http://citiwire.net/post/34/&quot; target="”_blank”">a
syndicated column by Neal Peirce</a>. <br>

The passing of new ethics code provisions in Anoka, MN (pop. 18,000) provides a
fine case study of how to try to pass off useless ethics code reform
as something valuable.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://abcnewspapers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3552…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the Anoka County Union</a>, it appears the city council has

A lie to protect oneself or to mislead others in one's own interest is
as bald a conflict of interest as there can be. But since it usually
involves no money, and since it is hard to prove the difference between
a lie and a mistake in knowledge or interpretation (which is why the
word "lie" is never used; "misrepresentation" and "false statement" are
preferred terms), a lie is almost never a violation of a government
ethics code. In addition, most people don't seem to think

Most local government ethics codes do not explicitly deal with
settlement agreements, but most state ethics codes do. I left
settlement agreements out of my first draft of the City Ethics Model
Code, but I have just added a provision, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/full-text-model-ethics-code#0.1_TOC81…; target="”_blank”">Section 213(5)</a>. The
language is based on that of several state ethics codes and rules,