<p><i>This is the complete text of Mayor John Peyton's speech to the
Jacksonville City Council in which he appoints City Ethics' Carla
Miller as Ethics Officer.</i><br>
<b>August 28, 2007</b>
<h1>
Peyton apologizes, promises reforms, looks to the future</h1>
<p>
These are demanding and difficult times for Jacksonville, a city with a
proud tradition of fiscal responsibility. </p>
<p>For the past 12 years, we have enjoyed the lowest

Yesterday in a dramatic speech to the City's Council, Mayor Peyton announced a series of sweeping ethics reforms, foremost of which was his appointment of Carla Miller as the City's Ethics Officer - in his words:

An article in the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR20070… Post</a> by Dana Milbank gives a fitting close to the beleaguered ex-Attorney General's tenure:

Taiwan has come up with the perfect way to prevent mayors from misusing government funds. Its solution appears to be based on the way parents prevent their children from taking money out of their wallets: give them an allowance to spend any way they please.

Today's guilty plea by New Orleans' City Council vice president, Oliver Thomas, is on its face about the acceptance of a bribe. But behind that bribe is a serious conflict of interest.

Not only was Thomas the council vice president and longest-serving council member, but he was also a member of the board of the French Market Corporation, a city agency that owns and manages buildings in the French Quarter. The bribe was from someone who wanted to keep his parking lot contract with the French Market Corporation.

It's difficult to show clearly that ethical government correlates with ethical conduct. However, last year Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel came up with <a href="http://www.nber.org/digest/feb07/w12312.html">a study</a> that does this: They studied parking tickets given to United Nations diplomats in Manhattan.

Election officials. Who in a democracy should be more above suspicion than election officials?

At the place where I vote, the line that is the required number of feet from the voting area is traditionally right along the near side of the sidewalk that runs along the edge of the school parking lot. When candidates, their supporters, and others come to hand out their sheets, hold their signs, and talk to voters, they stand on that sidewalk.

One of the 'latest things' in politics today is Drew Westen, a psych professor who advises the Democrats that they should be paying more attention to emotions than to policies (as, many say, the Republicans have been doing), because people's emotional reactions have a great effect on how they vote.

Immigration is a new issue for municipalities. Or is it?

What a nice thing to wake up to: reading in the newspaper that at least some American institutions are using words like 'transparency' and 'accountability' as if they really meant it.