When should governments provide counsel for officials who have had an
ethics complaint brought against them? This has become a big issue
recently in my state, Connecticut.<br>
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<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/442">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>
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In March, a lawyer for the Office of State Ethics proposed a legal
opinion that would not allow lawmakers to use staff attorneys in ethics

This Sunday New York <span>Times</span>' <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/us/18apology.html">front-page
feature</a> on how doctors are recognizing the value (ethical and financial)
of apologizing provides a good opportunity to bring up again what I
consider to be one of the most important topics in local government
ethics.<br>
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Actuary Jonathan Schwartz has received no funds from City Ethics. But
it may seem like that from how perfectly today's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/nyregion/16actuary.html&quot; target="”_blank”">front-page
New York Times article</a> follows up on the blog entry I posted
yesterday.<br>
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In yesterday's blog entry, I argued that governments and public sector

The city of Vallejo, California (pop. 117,000) is about to file for
bankruptcy, primarily, it appears, to allow it to void union contracts
and have a bankruptcy judge rather than negotiations work out a new
contract. Sajan George, an adviser to struggling public entities, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/11/BA6E10JVID…; target="”_blank”">has

A quote from a lawyer in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14detroit.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an article</a>
in today's New York <span>Times</span>
brought me back to what I recently promised to discuss at the end of <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/433&quot; target="”_blank”">a blog entry</a> about

How a big-city police chief responds to his commission of an ethics violation is more
important than the violation itself. The worst thing he can do is act as if he is above the law, as if ethics laws, not to mention ethics
considerations, do not apply to him.<br>
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Sadly, Miami's police chief, John Timoney, has done the wrong thing almost
every time he had the opportunity.<br>
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According to <a href="http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/story/630063.html&quot; target="”_blank”">a
recent article</a> in the Fort Worth <span>Star-Telegram</span>,
Fort Worth's mayor, Mike Moncrief, made $633,000 last year from the oil
and gas business. He also has an interest in several real estate
developments. A committee, appointed by the mayor and council, will

Form of government issues are not generally considered to be part of
government ethics.  But they are intertwined in important ways.<br>
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This can be seen from the New York City Council slush fund
scandal.  According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/nyregion/11council.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article</a> in today's New York Times, it began when the Board of

Ethics complaints are often brought for purely political reasons, and
election time is the favorite time for bringing them.<br>
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According to <a href="http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/05/attorney_opinion_ma… article</a> in yesterday's <i>Flint Journal, </i>a Thetford Township
Supervisor brought an ethics complaint before his own board against a

Elizabeth Wolgast’s 1992 book, <i>Ethics of an Artificial Person: Lost Responsibility in Professions and Organizations,</i> raises some very important government ethics questions. I will deal with just one of them here.

The term “artificial persons” includes lawyers and government officials who are considered to act in the name of others. Wolgast’s book looks at the problems such artificial persons cause with respect to our ordinary views of such ethical issues as responsibility and accountability.