Local Government Ethics in the News

The Times Union of Albany has run a series of articles and an editorial over the past week relating to local government ethics.

The first was a follow-up article to a 2011 story regarding the state Attorney General’s request for 900 local governments throughout the state to provide him with information about their local ethics codes, if any.

Sunday’s edition included a lengthy article titled “Ethics laws outdated, not used.” The newspaper looked at a number of Capital Region local governments, and found “sporadic financial disclosure requirements for elected officials and government employees, and inconsistent policies on the public’s right to review those records.”

Yesterday, the paper’s editorial board weighed in with an editorial which argued that “[s]trong ethics rules and watchdog bodies are essential to keeping public officials on the straight and narrow.”

Today’s edition has an article on political donations by the Town of Colonie’s ethics board chair, as well as a letter to the editor about the town of Bethlehem, which recently updated its ethics law.  (I was involved in the process of updating the town’s ethics law, and I currently serve on the Bethlehem Ethics Board.)