The Sun-Sentinel reported on Wednesday
Two years after voters demanded it, the [Broward County government] code of ethics became law Tuesday night. No more will county commissioners be able to accept gifts from lobbyists. Their family members and staff won’t be able to, either. No longer can commissioners sit on Selection Committees influencing who gets county contracts. County commissioners will not show up in Broward’s cities as lobbyists, moonlighting. Neither will their family members.
New light will be thrown on cloaked relationships between lobbyists and county commissioners. The public will be able to log onto a computer and find out which commissioners shared e-mails or dinners, or spent golf afternoons with which lobbyists. Commissioners will be trained in ethics each year. And a new Office of Inspector General will emerge, with the power to investigate the public’s allegations of corruption, waste and fraud.
A set of six amendments widely seen as “gutting’’ the ethics code was unanimously rejected. A “glitch’’ ordinance that proposed some small and some significant changes also was rejected.
