Santa Clara University Offers Ethics Camps for Public Officials

Business Wire, May 22, 2006

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Call it the anti-Abramoff genome project. In an effort to prevent the next big government ethics scandal, mayors, city managers and other public officials from around the country will spend two days in June dissecting ethical dilemmas - such as the lobbying scandal now rocking Washington - and trying to engineer a new, ethically enlightened public servant for the 21st century.

It's summer camp for politicians, and Judy Nadler, who devised this first-of-its-kind ethics training camp at Santa Clara University, says it's vital in an age of government and corporate scandals that dominate the national consciousness.

"With the kinds of problems we've been seeing on the national level, citizens and lawmakers are starting to say we've got to do something to defuse these land mines," says Nadler, senior fellow in government ethics at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, and former mayor of the city of Santa Clara.

On June 21 and 22, Nadler will gather 30 elected and appointed officials from around the U.S. for an "ethics summer camp," where campfire tales will include ruminations on how to devise a workable values-based ethics code in local government.

Scary ghost stories will include such based-on-fact case studies as "Bonnie Blackburn," a city council member taking expensive gifts from a prominent landowner; and "One Stop Shopping," about a city official who lures a Wal-Mart-like retailer to a struggling city, at the expense of local business owners.

"The idea of a summer camp is that you're away from your regular environment, and you enjoy what you're doing," says Nadler. "When you get back to the office, you have things about the experience that you remember and cherish. It's an atmosphere that's hard-working, but collegial and confidential."

Among the campers will be officials from Scottsdale, Arizona, which recently adopted a code of ethics in response to a citizens' petition (it hasn't yet been implemented); mayors and council members from other cities; and ethics commissioners, a relatively new phenomenon in city and municipal government, says Nadler.

"Not many places have ethics officers. We did a matrix of cities to find out who has ethics officers, ethics codes, and whether ethics training is mandatory, then looked at whether it reduces ethical problems in government."

Nadler found the emphasis on ethics doesn't always help. "The city of San Diego has an ethics code, for example, but they have myriad problems," she says. "Others that have no codes and no problems. It's not only about the code, it's about the culture you establish."

In addition to Nadler, "camp counselors" will include:

--Kirk Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center and former chair of Santa Clara County Political Ethics Commission.

--Elizabeth Brinkman Day, assistant director of character education for the Markkula Center.

--Elsa Chen, assistant professor of political science at Santa Clara University and leader of the Public Sector Program.

--JoAnne Speers, executive director and ethics program director of the Institute for Local Government.

--Carla Miller, esq., co-ethics officer for the city of Jacksonville, Fla., and board member of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL), and found of CityEthics.org.

--LeeAnn Pelham, executive director of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.

Contact Deepa Arora, media relations director, Santa Clara University 408-554-5125 darora@scu.edu . Or visit http://cms.scu.edu/ethics-center/events/public-ethics-camp.cfm.>

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