City government is inherently intimate. Our local representatives are not thousands of miles away in the Capital; they are our friends, neighbors, and peers. While this closeness is an asset, making city council more understanding of the people and their needs, it also gives rise to a fundamental issue–whenrepresentatives are expected to be actively involved citizens of the community, conflicts of interest are bound to be common. Indeed, this issue has been raised in each city council meeting that I have attended, most recently the one which took place on July 2nd. At the heart of this discussion lies one core question: what constitutes a conflict of interest in city government?
It is inevitable that city council members will be involved in a variety of local issues, so is it truly reasonable to expect them to recuse themselves from every item in which they have any interest? It is, in my opinion, absurd to call a conflict of interest as any connection to the item at hand. At this lowest level of government, this definition will force city council members to recuse themselves at every meeting. The only way to avoid such a problem is to impose strict limits on that which constitutes a conflict of interest. After all, having a connection to an issue does not always mean that a person is unable to judge upon it fairly. This ability is only compromised when the person standsĀ to gain or to lose something by the decision, yet even this is not completely true. The members of the city council are upstanding, honorable individuals who, I believe, would not succumb to their personal interests unless they were going to suffer or profit greatly. They ought to be trusted with the responsibility of deciding for themselves whether or not a personal interest will disable them from doing their job. Because city government is so close to the community, conflicts of interest arise with a rather inconvenient frequency. In order to allow city council member to do the job they were elected to do and not constantly be required to recuse themselves, these conflicts must only be taken into account when the person affected by it deems it to be of importance, or when others clearly believe that it impairs their judgement due to extreme personal involvement. Otherwise, a mere connection or other conflict of interest need not cause worry.
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