It's from last week, but it's interesting anyway: Erie Trustee Tom Van Lone is being accused of voting for unjustifiably restrictive land use regulations on a parcel owned by a friend with whom he's had a falling out. The dubious claim is that the restrictions are vindictive, not simply regular ol' growth management.
What's interesting is the Board of Trustees voted last week to spend up to $900 for a private investigator to look into the matter. There's nothing in the town's ethics ordinance saying such expenditures are required , so Van Lone voted against it. The stipend passed 6 - 1.
As opposed to abstaining, voting against further investigation of ethics complaints against yourself just adds more fuel to the fire. It's unfortunate that the Board couldn't just look at the issue at face value and determine if Van Lone crossed a line or not. Given the vagueness of ethics ordinances, he is not likely to be found in violation of anything.
The long background of the issue is in the Camera.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I aske the Public Works director about where the money would come from and by when in order to move ahead on the results of the study in 2010. Here is his response:
That is the $64,000 question....no pun intended........This is on the DRCOG 2035 Vision Plan...which means that no funding is available....we will have to leverage future revenues with CDOT/DRCOG to build the by-pass...............
What this means is that Lafayette will have to come up with a lot of bucks and as you can see, it isn't clear if and when. So as I said before, I don't expect a lot of traffic mitigration to occur on Hwy 7 in and out of town for a long time.
Doncha just love small town politics? People acting out in the public eye. Egos, insecurities, and feelings getting in the way of common sense.
Even though the ethics ordinance doesn't require Van Lone to recuse himself, it would've been the right thing to do. He obviously knew the potential existed for any decision to appear to be a conflict, regardless of which way he went. He should've put his ego aside and done the right thing.
Then, to compound the problem, he votes against spending money on an investigation. Stop the puffery.
There are 6 other trustees who could've made this decision without you.
Unfortunately, it gives fuel to those who believed no developer should sit on the Board of Trustees. And, takes away from an otherwise good performance on the Board by Van Lone.
Post a Comment