ABSTRACT
Cities and counties have a long and all-too-often tarnished history of unethical governance. The nineteenth-century era of Tammany Hall politics in New York City have historical counterparts in the Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the boss Daly political dynasty in Chicago, and the feudal barons in Philadelphia. The Ethics Resources Center study points to a glaring information gap between top management and employees regarding the extent of misconduct. The cases and controversies that follow are illustrative of the contemporary nature of ethical challenges faced by local governments—human rights, justice, duty, fraud, abuse of power. The lead case presents a most unusual situation in which the city manager of an urban community decides to have a gender reassignment, that is, change his sex. While the case is unusual in the history of city management, it describes a complex ethical environment in which the city manager believes that he is in a "city of progress.".
