With election day approaching, stand by for last-minute hype from the candidates. Call it Nonsense for the Naive. Like the few choice quotes that incumbents for Quakertown borough council offered The Intelligencer:
Vice President Jim Roberts said "The borough's going through a transitional time between two management eras. Now is not the time for a radical change." I like Jim, and hope he is re-elected. But the whole reason the borough is going through that "transitional time" is that current council governed so poorly for years. They abrogated all responsibility to ethically-challenged former manager Dave Woglom, who finally quit after his numerous deceptions, and over $1 million in improper contracts, were revealed.
Council President Dennis Hallman maintains his this-is-not-my-fulltime-job attitude, so it is understandable how out of touch he is: "Inadvertent problems can and do occur. Mistakes were made. But we took steps to correct them once we found out about them."
Inadvertent problems??? Mistakes??? There were dozens of illegal contracts. Electric rates are up 65 percent in just four years, because council didn't read its contract. Sewer rates are up 143 percent, water up 226 percent, because council allowed the town's infrastructure to crumble. The pool renovations were $800,000 over budget, and more than $1 million was wasted on the polluted Krupp site because council didn't properly investigate it before purchase. Qtown paid Bucks County Water & Sewer $800,000 for years of overcharges. All your tax dollars.
"Steps to correct them once we found out about them"??? An involved council would know the problems, not need others to point them out. But when this column first revealed the many issues back in 2004, Hallman and council sent out a borough-wide newsletter denying everything, and calling the accusations "false", "outrageous", and an "insult to the Borough". Council continued to defend, and employ, Woglom for three more years, until the Keystone report corroborated everything.
For sheer pre-election chutzpah, it doesn't get any better (or worse) than councilman Dave Wilsey. He missed almost half the regular meetings last year, but still claims that he "felt something was amiss in borough operations", and he "initiated the study that revealed the improprieties". In his dreams. In the September 21, 2006, Free Press, in response to the question "Since you were serving on council when those payments were made without proper procedures, what did you personally do to acknowledge and correct these problems?", he (truthfully) answered "Nothing".
Finally, we have school board hopeful Jerry Bassett. The man whose candidacy has raised a red flag larger than anything flying in Beijing: His wife, Janet, is a teacher in the district. Bassett would like you to believe that this is not a conflict of interest - that he could vote freely on any issue except teacher contracts.
That just isn't so. Teacher contracts would be a clear violation of law, but there are many other important issues that are, at the least, questionable: the district budget, which includes his wife's salaries and benefits; tax increases to fund that budget; the curriculum his wife will teach; issues involving the staff and administrators who will supervise his wife; teacher hours, benefits, working conditions, and support staff; union matters.
And where will his sympathies lie in those union negotiations? It is just naive to expect that spouses can regularly make hard business decisions that would adversely affect the other. That is why, legally, husbands and wives can not be compelled to testify against each other. In fact, in other states and school districts, the law would prevent Bassett from serving on the board.
Virginia and Mississippi school boards are explicitly forbidden from hiring the spouses of board members. The Illinois School Board Journal warns state districts that employing a spouse of a board member is prohibited, saying it is "foolhardy to disavow the natural and probable sharing of assets" between husband and wife.
Minnesota and Missouri boards may not employ any teacher related by blood or marriage to a school board member, except by a unanimous vote of the full board. The Oklahoma Attorney General ruled that a teacher, whose spouse became a board member, could only continue in that district for the balance of the teacher's current contract. The Ohio Ethics Commission found that a school board member's act of voting on matters concerning the employment of his wife constituted malfeasance in office, which warranted his removal from the board .
The New Jersey School Ethics Commission ruled that a board member can not participate in employment decisions regarding his/her spouse's supervisory administrators. In other words, he must abstain from all votes involving the superintendent, principals, and staff. He becomes useless.
And there is always the unexpected. In 2005, the Lowell, Massachusetts School Board was left with a $1.5 million shortfall, that had to be made up through program cuts, when two directors were unable to vote on a budget measure because their wives were teachers. And board member Gary Heatherly, in Gregory-Portland, Texas, was forced to abstain from voting on part of the curriculum in 2003 because his wife was an English teacher in the district, and served on a committee to consider textbooks.
In addition to state prohibitions, many individual school districts have similar "anti-nepotism laws". The Oyster River (New Hampshire) Cooperative School District is typical, and quite specific: "The Board will not employ any teacher or other employee if such teacher or other employee is the father, mother, brother, sister, wife, husband, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, or brother-in-law of the Superintendent or any member of the Board."
These laws have solid reasoning behind them, which was perfectly articulated in the Texas School Performance Review: "Even with a policy requiring a board member to abstain from voting, the school board can still present the appearance of a conflict of interest." QCSD has enough problems. We need directors who will solve them, not create more.
Qtown Borough Council
Republicans: Ed Scholl, Jim Roberts, Mike Johnson, Elfriede Werner.
Democrats: John Flynn, Michele Scarborough. No one else is qualified.
School Board
Region 1: George Dager
Region 2: Tom Marino, Kathy Mosely
Region 3: Lou-Ellen Renshaw, Dean Wackerman