Chapter 1
1. Was this a good ending for the problem presented in the case? Is there any way the sidewalk could have been built?
2. Consider if the supervisor would have done anything differently if his children did not attend the school. How might Gamble have felt if a car had hit a child on the road in front of the school?
3. Is it ever ethical to break the law? Even if it is not a felony? Was Gamble correct that laws of men and laws of God can be treated differently? Would a jury have agreed with this had actions been taken to court?
4. Would the police chief and township clerk have been subject to legal penalties if Gamble would have been prosecuted?
5. Should the <link is hidden> officials share some responsibility for putting the supervisor into his dilemma situation?
Chapter 3
Trust Your Gut or Go with the Flow?
1. Was the mayor unethical by being overly involved in the police department?
2. Did the city manager violate Tenet 11 of the ICMA code of ethics by politicizing the interview process with a blue ribbon panel?
3. Would it have been more ethical for the city manager to have had an open selection process rather than a closed one? Was this in violation of Tenet 9 of the ICMA code?
4. Was Chief Grover’s resignation an illegal contrastive termination because of his race?
5. What would be likely community reaction if Ellis had trusted his gut and appointed William Carson?
6. How could Ellis have better handled this appointment? Did he fail to do an adequate background check on Cobb?
7. How should the manager have handled the racial overtones borne by the mayor?
8. What, if anything, should the manager have done to address the mayor’s hands-on approach to his part-time job?
9. What action could the manager have taken to prevent the mayor and others in the police department from undermining the police chief?
10. Was the manager wrong in allowing the police chief to keep the city vehicle during his 2-month leave of absence?
11. Under the spirit of the Open Meetings Act, should the city manager have allowed the police chief interviews to be open to the public?
Chapter 4
Oh, the tangled Web We Weave.
1. Where does one even begin to evaluate Mr. Nelson’s ethical lapses? Which of the twelve ICMA Code of Ethics tenets did he not violate?
2. Are city managers true professionals in the strictest sense of the word?
3. Is city management a profession akin to medicine, law, accounting, etc.?
4. Are the ICMA and its state affiliate a social club as one council member described them?
5. Did the ICMA and its state affiliate overreact by barring Nelson from membership? Would not a public censure be more appropriated? After all, the ICMA does not required it members to have college degrees.
6. Is there a strategy that Nelson might have successfully used to keep his position with Cannon Edge?
7. Does the nearly 18 years of city manager experience trump the fact that he held no college degrees?
8. Should he length of time elapsed since his application as Cannon Edge’s city manager have been a factor in his firing?