Redux: Conflict of Interest

Here is a Letter to the Editor from June 4th that was published in the Leader Telegram. The letter is a rebuttal to an editorial comment written by Don Huebscher that said that basically all the BOE members have "baggage" which complicates their decision-making on the BOE. I failed to copy the online column when it was originally published and now the archived version has disappeared from the LT site. If anyone has it, please e-mail it to me and I will publish it in this blog.

My memory of it was that he basically said everyone on the board is conflicted: (Mary Kneer is an ECASD employee, Mike Bollinger is a former ECASD Administrator, Carol Craig is a member of a union that reports to the same national union as the ECASD teachers, Trish Cummins' children do not attend ECASD schools, Ken Faanes' wife is a substitute teacher, and Mike O'Brien has a double conflict with his wife's employment at ECASD and his law firm serves as the ECASD legal counsel.) Please correct me if I am misstating. Ironically, Wogahn escaped being fingered by the crack investigative journalism skills of Huebscher and yet Commissioner Wogahn rightly recuses himself every single time there is a vote on health care benefits as he is a local health care provider.

I do not have the lengthy EC residence history to know first hand, but others have informed me that John Flynn, former ECASD BOE President, sent his children to the local parochial schools rather than the ECASD schools. If that is the case, what is the big deal for people with Commissioner Cummins and her decision to home school her children?

Again, if someone has an e-copy of Huebscher's editorial I will gladly publish it here.


Opinions
Updated 6/4/2007 11:38:39 AM

Letter: Only one conflict on board



In his column of Sunday, May 24, Don Huebscher effectively demonstrates that most members of the Eau Claire school board have “baggage” (his term). However, he fails miserably to demonstrate his related contention the board members’ “baggage” somehow explains and justifies the clear conflict of interest posed by hiring the law firm that employs the board’s president to also represent the school district.

The column goes astray when it forgets the meaning of conflict of interest: a situation in which financial considerations may compromise — or appear to compromise — an individual’s professional judgment. One might question why a board member home schools her children rather than sends them to public school, but this is not a “conflict of interest,” even using a “not-so-loose definition” of the term.

Huebscher does a fair job of muddying the waters through his fuzzy thinking and imprecise use of language, but he does not demonstrate that any board member besides the president faces a clear and unequivocal conflict of interest.

SCOTT LOWE

Eau Claire