In common discussions of municipal ethics, one principal type of municipal employee is rarely mentioned: the teacher. Unless a teacher is, say, a school board member, he or she is rarely in a position to have a conflict of interest. Right?

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/319">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>

Gaining and retaining the public's trust in government is the principal reason given for passing ethics codes. But there is little talk beyond this about the concept of trust.

Louisiana legislators do not seem to like the state Board of Ethics. Earlier this year, two of them sued the Board of Ethics, based on a decision it made. Now the Legislature has passed a bill clearly intended to get rid of the Board's chief counsel, Gray Sexton.

Whenever someone dies in a village in Bangladesh, Gonoshasthaya Kendra, a health charity, holds a public post-mortem, according to an article in the July 7, 2007 issue of the <i>Economist</i>. 'The aim is not to blame or indict <i>per se</i>'bare-knuckled confrontation would alienate the government'but to remind public servants that someone is watching them, and that the negligent will be named and shamed.'

According to <a href="http://www.politicsnj.com/files/James-RileyIndictment0712.pdf">a 33-count indictment</a> filed yesterday by the United States Attorney for New Jersey, former Newark, NJ mayor Sharpe James appears to have been just another crooked urban mayor out to help himself and his friends to the sort of perks that aren't supposed to come with public service: trips, tickets, cruises, the usual.

An excellent op-ed column by Stanley Fish in the July 14 New York <i>Times</i> focuses on a very difficult ethical problem in municipal government: affirmative action. The recently decided Supreme Court decision, <a href="http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-908.pdf">Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al (No.

Many municipal ethics codes have a provision similar to this one:

<b>Contingent Fees</b>
No official or employee may retain, or be retained by, anyone to solicit or secure a contract with the town upon an agreement or understanding that includes a commission, percentage, brokerage, or contingent fee, except with respect to attorneys hired to represent the town on a common contingency fee basis.

According to a May 24, 2007 New York <i>Times</i> editorial, the Commerce Department inspector general, charged with protecting whistle-blowers, took vengeance on two subordinates who questioned his expense accounts. He reassigned his top deputy and his counsel to peripheral jobs, when they refused to sign off on expensive trips and office renovations. This happened at the federal level, but it is important to show how fragile whistle-blowing is.

If you had no knowledge of government ethics, and you were asked what, on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, was the most frequent form of unethical behavior in municipal government, you might say 'passing rumors along.' That's the meat and the potatoes of every organization's conversations, and it's only the most self-controlled of us who don't partake in producing, consuming, and passing along rumors, at least occasionally.

Today's New York <i>Times</i> Week in Review section features <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/weekinreview/24liptak.html?ref=weekin… article</a> on local prosecutors and how their ethical misconduct is dealt with by the lawyer discipline system, the profession's disciplinary system.