A better list of opportunities for corruption within government

Last week I wrote an entry, "Corruption: DC vs. Maryland jurisdictions," in response to reports of corruption in Prince George's County, Maryland and a local columnist's response that things in DC weren't so bad after all. I went on to put together a list, which after reading other articles in the Post about liquor license issues in PG County ("Liquor, politics mingle easily in Pr. George's"), and about grant-related embezzlement in Virginia ("Theft raises questions about use and safety of tobacco settlement money") that I guess it's worth expanding, and creating a more comprehensive list of issue areas within elected government, where the ability to manipulate the system needs to be constrained to reduce opportunities to be unethical.

The first entry listed:

- tax abatement requests, which are initiated not through a defined public process, but directly by City Council members;

- sale of DC Government owned property;

- definition and provision of "community benefits" related to "planned unit developments;"

- use of eminent domain authority,; and

- contracting.

To these items need to be added:

- licensing, especially liquor licenses and taxicabs (legislated restrictions on taxi licenses is an area where corrupt practices have been uncovered in DC, but not with liquor licenses because the number of licenses that can be issued is not restricted, except for preponderance rules in particular commercial districts), as well as other types of businesses in other jurisdictions such as auto repair;

- earmarks for nonprofit organizations (this has been a problem in DC, but could be easily corrected by the creation of an open and transparent grant funding process);

- relatedly are granting processes that can be manipulated (the aforementioned Virginia project is one, but PG had another example of manipulating the process of granting "community benefits" monies derived from the National Harbor development) when there isn't a defined, open, and transparent process in place; and

- new laws which require new regulatory limitations on certain businesses to the benefit of other businesses.