Ethics problems and the need for ethics programs are the stuff of cities and, perhaps, larger towns, or so most people think. In small towns, everyone knows everyone else, and people can't get away with unethical conduct. And as for corruption, there simply aren't enough zeros in the town's budget. There's not much to learn from small towns, in terms of municipal ethics. Right?

Connecticut House Speaker James A. Amann has been receiving a great deal of criticism for asking lobbyists for contributions to the charity he works for as a paid fundraiser (including criticism from me: see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/239"&gt; my blog entry on fundraising problems</a>).

Another logical fallacy commonly used by municipal officials is the opposite of <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/234">the Ad Hominem Attack</a>: the Ad Populum ('[appeal] to the people') Defense.

Double-dipping occurs when someone holds two government jobs, usually at two different levels of government. This is not legal in many states, and for a good reason. It sets up many possible conflicts of interest, not the least of which is that when you're doing one job, you're not doing the other. It sometimes means actually dealing with yourself, wearing both your hats at once. It leads to a lot of pork-barrel spending, as local officials use their state power and local connections to direct state grant money.

South Africa's police commissioner upon the revelation that he had met privately and repeatedly with a drug kingpin:

"Does that mean that anyone who has an appointment with him is a criminal?"

The highest median income in 2005, and the fastest-growing county in the United States between 2000 and 2005. How does that translate in terms of local government ethics?

North Carolina's 2006 state ethics reform turned out the lights, according to <a href="http://www.charlotteobserver.com/217/story/48278.html">an article in yesterday's Charlotte <i>Observer</i></a>. The new system provides that there will be no public hearings before the new state ethics commission unless the accused asks for one. In many cases, when a case is dismissed or a reprimand is given, no one will ever know.

Lobbyists, lawmakers, and charitable fundraising form a triangle that is both virtuous and harmful.

Community leaders like to be identified with charitable groups, and charitable groups like to be identified with community leaders. It's a natural combination. But what is not natural, or even easy to see, is the line between charitable fundraising and campaign fundraising, when lobbyists, contractors, and developers enter into the picture.

The fact is that there is a failure on the part of the educational system to establish the differences between ethics, morals and justice. We expect the courts to provide justice, we deplore the lack of morals, but we as a group do not understand or apply or discuss ethics. Ethics, from the Greek "Ethos" or reason, had been the gold standard for educated minds since before the Reformation, but even the discussion of ethics is now seen to be a matter for university professors only and has departed from the general public as something of serious import.

Here's a difficult case involving a board of education's attorney.

The board of education in a wealthy, medium-sized Connecticut town is represented by a large law firm that represents 80 boards of education across the state (half the state's total). That same firm is representing a developer that is suing the town's planning and zoning commission, and it appears to be a controversial matter.