Politics & Government

District 99 Forum: Question 8

If you faced a question on the school board that presented a personal conflict of interest, how would you deal with it?

Keith Matune
I think it depends on the conflict. I think a lot of people inherently feel that a teacher serving on the board of education is a conflict in and of itself. How would you deal with union contracts, how could you be fair to teachers—of course, you're going to take their side. I'm a very fair person. People that know me understand that I work extremely hard and I have a lot of integrity. That integrity says that if there is a conflict I have no question with recusing myself. I can't really imagine a situation where that might happen, but if that was the case and people in the community were able to bring that to my attention, bring it to light, whatever is in the best interest of the community is what I would refer to.                  

Mike Davenport
I'd certainly recuse myself, and especially look to the advice and guidance of other board members and how they felt about it, too. If they felt it was appropriate for me to recuse myself, I most likely would.

Allyn Barnett
I would definitely recuse myself.

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Cliff Grammich
I'd recuse myself, although, depending on the conflict of interest. I think what we've seen in the past two years, to be honest, was some fabricated conflict of interest for one board member in particular to try and shut down her contributions to the board. So again, depending on what the conflict of interest is and depending as long as the district is following other standards—widely accepted standards on what conflicts of interest are—yes, of course, recuse myself.

Nancy Kupka
I think it depends on what the conflict of interest is. Having a conflict of interest is not always a reason not to vote. Sometimes it is simply a matter of identifying what that conflict of interest is, so that it's transparent, and then placing your vote. Sometimes, again depending on the nature of the conflict, you have to recuse yourself. It's on a case-by-case basis.

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