Warrant Articles No. 18 and
19.
Residents of Windham have put forth two Conflict of
Interest petitions that appear as Articles 18 and 19 on the Town Warrant. These petitions are designed to prohibit
conflicts of interests and assure that town employees and officials serve only the
residents of Windham and do not use their position with the town to advance
their own interests or that of their friends, relatives and business
associates.
If you think that town officials would never engage in
conduct that favors their own interest or that of their friends, relatives and
business associates, you are mistaken.
For instance, last year a $35,000 no-bid contract was awarded to a local
business that has a business relationship with a member of the Board of
Selectmen. That Selectman did not recuse himself from
voting on the award of the bid but instead cast the deciding vote in favor of
the award of this no-bid contract.
By way of another example, not long ago a member of the
Planning Board resisted a request for his disqualification from hearing and
deciding a request to convert the North Clark Farm property from rural zone to
commercial zone even though that Planning Board member was employed by a company
that was owned by the same person who owned North Clark Farm.
Another example
would be the town’s engagement of an engineer to certify the protest petition
brought by the abutters of North Clark Farm.
The abutters protested the rezoning of North Clark Farm from rural to
commercial zone. The engineer engaged by
the town was the same engineer who was the long time engineer for the person
who owned North Clark Farm. It was no
surprise that the engineer concluded that there were an insufficient number of
abutters to constitute a valued protest petition. After the outcry of some who claimed that the
engineer that was hired by the town had a conflict of interest, the town was
forced to engage another engineer to perform the certification work. The second
engineer certified that there were, in fact, a sufficient number of abutters to
constitute a valid protest petition. The
protest petition was subsequently upheld by the court.
The list of examples of crony politics, favoritism and
inside dealings goes on and on.
Town officials and town employees should serve the public
and only the public. Common decency, honesty, integrity and fairness mandate
that town officials and town employees should be prohibited from partaking in
any action that involves their own interests or that of their family and
business associates. If you agree, vote
in favor of the adoption of warrant articles 18 and 19. If you do not agree, it can only be because
you are one of those insiders who are using the system for your personal
benefit.
Please vote in favor of adopting the Conflict of Interest
rules set forth in Article 18 and Article 19.
Concerned citizen,
J. Mckenzie