Should council members do business with each other or with the
mayor? Another way to put this question is, does their doing business together give rise to a
conflict of interest?<br>
<br>
The situation that gave rise to these questions came out recently in

<b>Update</b>: August 9, 2012 (see below)<br>
<br>
People tend to think that all good government people are alike. The
thinking goes that those who favor the improvement of ethics
programs also favor such things as term limits, referendums and
initiatives, and pension forfeiture by those found to have violated
the public's trust. As a matter of fact, I don't favor any of these other good
government approaches.<br>
<br>
The one I want to talk about in this blog

Here's an all too common scenario:  A local government
creates an ethics program after a scandal, and time passes either
without another scandal or with a change of administration. The new
administration sees the ethics program as unnecessary, and decides
not to fund the program and not to replace ethics commission members who resign
or whose terms run out. The ethics program remains on the books, but
there is no training, advice, disclosure, or enforcement of the

Luis Toro, director of Colorado Watch, wrote <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luis-toro/the-public-trustee-ethics_b_172…; target="”_blank”">an
interesting Huffington Post post yesterday</a> about ethics issues
relating to Colorado's public trustee system.<br>
<br>
Public trustees (one per county) oversee the foreclosure system in
the state. They work things out between lenders and homeowners. Most

Corporate executives have obligations not only to stockholders, but
also to other stakeholders, including customers, creditors, and the
greater community. However, government officials, at least from the
government ethics point of view, have overwhelming obligations only
to members of their immediate community. Is this right?<br>
<br>

It's always disheartening to see high-level officials
misuse an ethics program for the sake of personal revenge or, as the official says in
the case I'm looking at here, to get "my name cleared."<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/local/former-mayor-files-ethics-complaint…; target="”_blank”">an

It's a good idea for states to encourage the creation of local
government ethics programs by drafting model ethics codes. It's also
a good idea for states to require minimal local government ethics
provisions. What is not good is model codes and minimal requirements
that are not accompanied by explanations and do not provide

<b>A Complex School Board Conflict Situation</b><br>
Should someone closely associated with an organization that has been awarded a sizeable preschool contract be prevented from sitting on a school board when the
contract was not with the school board? That is
one of the questions raised by <a href="http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Bridgeport-ed-board-member-denies-c…; target="”_blank”">an

An interesting question arose in an ethics proceeding in Kennesaw,
GA, a city of 30,000 just outside of Atlanta. According to <a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/resident-amends-ethics-complaint-1479712.h…; target="”_blank”">an

<br>Anyone who has seen the movie <i>Chinatown</i> has some idea how much
ethical misconduct went into the ongoing battles over water in
California. Those who want to get down to the nitty gritty of it
will enjoy Robert Gottlieb and Margaret Fitzsimmon's <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=led17FVPnr0C&q&quot; target="”_blank”"><i>Thirst
for Growth: Water Agencies as Hidden Government in California</i></a>