One of the most serious obstacles to ethics training is cynicism. For example, a councilman in South Lake Tahoe, California said, according to <a href="http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20070115/NEWS/101150035">a recent article in the Tahoe <i>Daily Tribune</i></a>, that the California requirement of ethics training for all municipal officials is an indication of a breakdown in trust in local government and "It's not going to change behavior.

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<strong>How can an ethics commission be truly independent?</strong>
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In the model code I wrote as the beginning of what I hope will be a long public conversation about all aspects of municipal ethics, I suggest that a municipality's legislative body appoint members from a list given to them by the local League of Women Voters.

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When an ethics commission is appointed by the city's principal officials, can it possibly clear the air with respect to allegations against them? Baltimore's Board of Ethics has five members, four of them appointed by the mayor, three of those confirmed by the Council, and the fifth member appointed by the city solicitor, who is in turn a mayoral appointee.
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This is the place to share your experiences with and thoughts about problems faced in passing or improving municipal ethics codes, and possible solutions to these problems.

There's a lot of talk about organizational culture and the effect it can have on individuals' unethical conduct, but it's rare to find reported instances of poor organizational cultures that aren't extreme, such as Chicago. Even Enron had an excellent ethics program, and its misconduct appears to have been limited to high-level management.

When the United States was founded, it was not power or wealth or religious diversity that the Founding Fathers felt differentiated Americans from others, allowing them to found a republic, but public virtue.

A recent <i>New York Review of Books</i> essay by historian Edmund S. Morgan argued this convincingly. In the early nineteenth century, Americans "continued to regard public virtue as the hallmark of a republic, and they retained a doubt that other peoples were as well endowed with it as themselves."

Philadelphia's Committee of Seventy may be a little gray (it recently celebrated its 100th birthday), but in its 'reborn' form (it had taken the limited role of monitoring election activities) it still knows how to take a stand and make a difference.

<a href="http://www.tillerllc.com/news/survey.html">A survey</a> commissioned by Tiller, a consulting company that specializes in what it calls "cause commerce," found a gaping leadership void when it comes to social responsibility.

People want to do more good, get more involved in their communities, but they don't know how, the survey concludes. And according to Tiller, business is uniquely positioned to fill the leadership void.

"Passion" is not the first word that comes to mind when one thinks about municipal ethics (but it would be interesting to know what word does first come to mind). And yet passion is what you can find in <a href="http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/01/06/news/local/30-trail…; an article and on-line discussion</a> about a current conflict controversy in Billings, Montana.

One thing that's good about local government is that so much of it is done by volunteers. Volunteers aren't professional politicians. They have something better to do with their time.

Yes, most of them do. But for many, government service is central to what they do with the great bulk of their time.