{"id":27062,"date":"2015-10-20T08:54:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T12:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=27062"},"modified":"2015-10-20T08:54:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T12:54:46","slug":"letter-brookes-has-conflict-of-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=27062","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Brookes has conflict of interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

To The\u00a0Editor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Letters1\"<\/a>I am concerned. Being new to Chadds Ford I have been researching my new home and community. I was very disturbed to discover a conflict of interest in the upcoming election. Public officials should be held accountable to the highest standards of ethics and should avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Therefore, I question why Beverly Brookes could be considered qualified to serve as a School Board Director for Region C of the Unionville Chadds-Ford School District, which encompasses Chadds Ford and Pennsbury Townships.<\/p>\n

Ms. Brookes\u2019 daughter is a teacher in Unionville-Chadds Ford School District and a former coach of one of the girls\u2019 athletic teams. If Ms. Brookes were elected, she would be in a position to influence how much her daughter was paid through the collective bargaining agreement with the teachers\u2019 union and hire\/fire her daughter\u2019s ultimate supervisor: the Superintendent of the School District. This is clearly inappropriate<\/p>\n

In fact, Pennsylvania law squarely addresses such obvious conflicts of interest. The State ethics Commission has interpreted the Ethics Act as precluding<\/u> school board members from taking part in contract negotiations where members of the immediate family are district employees. See, e.g.<\/u>, Van Rensler, Opinion of Commission No. 90-017, School Law Information Exchange<\/u>, Vol. 28, No. 5 (1991). The Ethics Commission has also ruled that such a conflict precludes officials to obtain information that could impact collective bargaining negotiations, including salary information. See, e.g.,<\/u> Mattie, Advice of Counsel No. 91-508, School Law Information Exchange<\/u>, Vol. 29, 28 No. 36 (1991).<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to be a lawyer to understand the problem with an elected official being able to award her child a raise or other benefits. However, Ms. Brookes, who has secured the Democrat nomination for school board, has not addressed this issue publically. Does she think no one is paying attention? I am paying attention as are many other community members.<\/p>\n

Even if Ms. Brookes announces (after this issue was brought to the public\u2019s attention) that she will not participate in negotiating with teachers concerning compensation nor with the hiring\/firing of the Superintendent, one must wonder exactly why Region C would want one of its three elected School Board Members precluded from participating in the most important decisions that a School Board Director actually makes: teachers\u2019 contract and the selection of the Superintendent. In other words, if Ms. Brookes wins this election, Region C will lose a vote on the issues that matter the most.<\/p>\n

I find it unfortunate the Ms. Brookes has not previously disclosed this conflict to the voters at large. I find the potential loss of our \u201cvoice\u201d even more troubling. This issue needs to be addressed. The Chadds Ford Community deserves answers.<\/p>\n

\n

Lisa Carman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chadds Ford<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To The\u00a0Editor: I am concerned. Being new to Chadds Ford I have been researching my new home and community. I was very disturbed to discover a conflict of interest in the upcoming election. Public officials should be held accountable to the highest standards of ethics and should avoid even the appearance of a conflict of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[485,6425,1286],"class_list":["post-27062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-board-of-education","tag-election-2015","tag-unionville-chadds-ford-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}