Bribes and Zoning

Unfortunately, bribery in the context of land use planning decisions is an all too frequent occurrence. The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a decision convicting an attorney who acted as a go-between in a zoning change for pay scheme. The council members got $25,0000 for their vote, around $ 5,000 each. One of the councilmen was an FBI informant. The technical issues on appeal aren't important for this blog entry. My point is the prevalence of bribery in the zoning context. It is a very unfortunate by-product of the zoning system. The case is US v Ciresi, 2012 WL 4757916 (1st Cir. 2012).

Corruption in the zoning process

Yet another federal criminal case demonstrating the seemingly pervasive quality of corruption in the local zoning and codes enforcement process. In US v Keen, 676 F 3d 981 (11th Cir. 2012), the zoning enforcement officer was convicted of criminal misconduct in accepting money from an undercover FBI agent, and paying bribes to two commissioners for favorable votes on the development project. the convictions were upheld, but the interesting part is the actual presentation of the corruption in the process. Who knows how much of this actually goes on; it's a safe bet that law enforcement only picks up the absolute worst, the folks who really don't know how to cover their trail very well. It is certainly a sad story for local government.