A question about Brooks – – since his wife is the planning board attorney who steered the Valley expansion through the Planning Board, will he ever be able to vote on a Valley related matter one way or the other? Won’t there always be a conflict of interest presented by the concern that he is merely voting to prop up and validate her advice to the Board during their deliberations?
For that matter, will Brooks ever be able to vote on any subject whatsoever that has been addressed by the Planning Board? Isn’t he going to have to sit on the sideline during the next couple of years? Even if she and her firm were to resign now from the planning board, the big decisions of the past few years are going to be fine tuned and acted on by the council over the next couple of years.
In that case, electing Brooks would equate to electing an empty chair.
I think what you would see is the same thing as with Gwen. This is public before the election so it is hard to say there is a conflict (especially since technically his wife worked for the village). If you dont want him to vote on these projects you should vote for other people. If he is elected, there is no conflict.
sorry Brian it does not work that way and it did not work that way fro Gwenn who has a massive conflict of interest with Valley, but Village Hall is filled with conflicts and these will be cleaned out after May 10th
Its hard. We dont want people in office who have never done anything or been involved but we also dont want people too close to one side of the issues. I was glad to see the support (besides from Walsh) for the anti-nepotism law. That will help.
Personally, I worry more about conflicts that arise after elections than before. If the people elect someone who formerly worked on one side or another of an issue at least we know going into the election. The people can then decide if they care about the possible conflict.
Mr. Brooks is a respectable man and volunteer in the Village. I have no problem him with the exception of the conflict of interest.
Not going to be a problem because Brooks will not be elected.
Non issue.
This conflict is very different than simply his being part of a group in town or having a preference for one thing or another. Gail Price gives legal advice that could sway the board one way or the other – – the appearance of impropriety now exists to the extent she may have tried to gain favor with any groups having an interest before the board. He could have the most integrity of the whole bunch, that is not the issue. The issue is one of perception and public trust.