The News-Leader ran a story on Saturday about an incident that happened with the city’s budget meeting on Tuesday. Councilman Dan Chiles, a volunteer member of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks, spoke passionately against cutting the city’s contribution of $56,200 in half. The question has been raised by city attorney Dan Wichmer about whether or not it’s a violation of the Code of Ethics for Councilman Chiles to speak and advocate as a Council member for a committee of which he is a member.
Wichmer said to the News-Leader:
“When they talk about the budget and start getting into cuts to nonprofits, I’m going to say we would advise any council members who sit on any of these boards that it would be wise to abstain,” Wichmer said. “It’s important for any council person to avoid any appearance of a conflict.”
Councilman Chiles sees it this way:
“I don’t see any conflict here,” Chiles said Friday. “I receive no income and no benefit because I am a volunteer on that committee. I also volunteer with the UDA (Urban Districts Alliance), the Discovery Center and Ozark Greenways. Other council members volunteer on similar kinds of boards. Are we supposed to step aside anytime anything involving any of these groups comes up before council? I don’t think so.”
Chiles acknowledged there would be a conflict if he was paid by any of the groups he serves and also dealt with their funding as a city councilman.
“Do I personally have any direct or indirect material benefit from volunteering on these boards? The answer is no.”
This is an interesting situation because I can see both sides of the discussion having a valid argument. In the case of Councilman Chiles, he certainly is not gaining anything personally in terms of finances by advocating for the Watershed Committee. The only possible thing I could see if the funding was cut is that perhaps as a Committee member Councilman Chiles might be expected to increase his financial donations to the organization but that’s not something you can conclusively state when discussing the issue of a conflict of interest. So, in terms of legally being a conflict, I don’t see where you can build a case that Councilman Chiles is in violation of the city’s code.
Councilman Chiles said: “At a certain point, this all gets absurd.”
I completely agree with that as well. However, the atmosphere in the city of Springfield is bordering on the absurd and that needs to be taken into account in this situation.
After the release of the audit, we’ve entered an atmosphere where the more radical voices insinuating that the fix is in on everything the city does or that everyone on the Council is corrupt has gotten louder. While they’re a very small minority of the overall group of concerned citizens who want accountability and are rightly paying attention to the actions of the City Council and city staff they are still vocal enough to cause disruptions and to try and paint situations as being much worse than they are in reality. It’s in that atmosphere that Councilman Chiles finds himself as the discussions regarding the city budget go forward. It’s that atmosphere that Councilman Chiles has to consider when looking at this situation and any potential conflict of interest because those who loathe the city are going to try and say that while it’s not legally a conflict of interest you cannot ignore the fact Councilman Chiles has something on the line.
Looking at the atmosphere surrounding this situation, I don’t see how Councilman Chiles cannot step aside when the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks is being mentioned for a budget cut. While I don’t think that he would do anything that is unethical in this situation I don’t think we can allow even the appearance of conflict to derail the proceedings. This budget is critical for the future direction of Springfield and the impact on the police and fire departments both in terms of the pension and in the morale of the officers and firefighters is unquestioned. While I think it’s great to have a Council member as passionate about the groups they support as Councilman Chiles I don’t think we can allow that to even potentially become a dividing line right now.
So I hope that Councilman Chiles will do the right thing going forward and remove himself from the discussion should the Watershed Committee be brought up again for a budget cut. I don’t believe that he needs to be disciplined or removed from office because of this situation because I don’t see any legal grounds to officially call this a conflict but in the importance of avoiding any claims of impropriety against Councilman Chiles or the Council he needs to recuse himself.
