Questions Come Quickly - Anonymous Asks
Anonymous asks: Robyn is a teacher with the school division. I know that Tom Hoffman's wife, Wendy, was a teacher too. I can see where your interests could be conflicted on issues occasionally. Any comments Aaron?
Anonymous I do have a comment:
It has been determined by Health Canada, 1 out of 5 members of the working population are involved in some capacity with educational institutions. This includes: teaching staff, support staff, administration, special needs assistants, parents, volunteers, secretaries, coaches, librarians, central office staff, maintenance staff, bus drivers, custodians, counselors and consultants to list a few. It would be very difficult to not have some affiliation with this school board if you are an active member of the High Level community. It is not uncommon for a couple in the High Level region to both work for the school board in several capacities. It would also be fair to say that each individual aforementioned would have the prospect of conflicted interests at some point throughout the candidates term. With this said, professional maturity and judgment needs to be made with a conscious decision to keep the school division's interests as a primary focus. If elected, this is exactly what I intend to do.
Thanks,
Aaron.
Brad_8888 has this to contribute:
"I don't see that as such a big problem, in fact, attracting quality candidates in a smaller area like High Level is a bigger one. If we expect that teacher's spouses cannot sit as representatives on our school board, then we will be wiping out an awful lot of High Level's best educated citizens."
posted by Aaron Lambie at 10:18 PM
6 Comments:
I would like to open my comment on this issue by saying that I applaud anyone who seeks public office; if they do so for the reason of providing public service. I also commend Mr. Lambie on his innovative use of techology to provide public feedback.
However, I have an issue with the topic of conflict of interest being so lightly glossed over. There are various levels of conflict of interest, but the most serious form is pecuniary interest and that is what is being discussed here. Pecuniary interst occurs when a decision can affect the monetary interest of a decision maker, that person's employer, or their family. As any decision relating to wages, salaries, benefits, allowances, or other form of monetary compensation, to staff affects Aaron's fiancee, this is a direct pecuniary interest to Aaron. By law he must exclude himself from any discussion or decision that may involve a pecuniary interest. This is the situation Mr. Hoffman found himself in during the threatened teacher's strike of just over a year ago. As any negotiation with teaching, or other, staff involves monetary compensation Mr. Lambie will be unable to represent the people he seeks to represent. And while I would not expect a strike by school division staff in the near future, the bulk of the Division's budget is made up of salaries and related costs. A discussion regarding compensation to staff would occur regularly.
I believe we have all had our fill of those in elected office who make light of their responsibility to the taxpayer, while themselves or their friends directly benefit from public funds. Conflict of interest, especially pecuniary interest, is a serious matter and it is difficult to serve the best interest of the public, or in this case the student, when you are not allowed in the board room.
I will accept Mr. Lambie's statement that Health Canada has determined that 1 in 5, or 20%, of the working population is involved in educational institutions, however I must respectfully disagree that it is difficult to avoid a pecuniary involvement with the school division, as this would leave 80% of the population who would not have that involvement. I must further disagree with Brad_8888 that having teacher's spouses not sit as school board members would create a lesser quality pool of candidates. There are numerous qualities that make a citizen an excellent candidate for elected office, and level of education is but one of them. It appears to me that past history has shown that the spouses of teachers have used their education and intelligence wisely and avoided the conflict that sitting as a school board member would bring.
I do commend Mr. Lambie for seeking elected office, however I do question if this office is the best one for him to seek.
10:58 PM
Clark, dude, blogs are the future and they're all about ideas and information and freedom of expression. Now, let's get down to the brass tacks: I smell clownshit. Hoffman served for years on the school board and I never heard one person assert, in all that time, that he was benefitting financially from doing so. In fact, Hoffman, year after year, had the lowest remuneration and allowances paid out to him than any other board member. To say that Aaron Lambie "will be unable to represent the people he seeks to represent" is utterly false and you know it. Your talk-down spiel about pecuniary interest seems little more than a not-so-subtle, smoke-and-mirrors "Vote Gary" endorsement. How brazen of you to add, with such a slick pretense of earnestness, that you would like to "commend Mr. Lambie for seeking public office" only to backhand him by "questionning if this office is the best one for him to seek". You, Big Clark, arbiter of all that is best for the many little residents of Northern Alberta.
Let's get back to the brass tacks. Unfortunately, no parents chose to run in this byelection. We have only two choices:
#1. Aaron Lambie, who is a university graduate, volunteers regularly with students and also consistently contributes to school efforts to raise funds.
#2. the other candidate.
5:33 PM
Florence,
I was not aware you could smell anything on a blog, your technology must be better than mine.
However, you do appear to have completely missed my point and have taken several comments out of context.
First I made no comment on Mr. Hoffman's remuneration, only that the rules, and the law, would not allow him to participate in discussions regarding remunerations to teaching staff. This same set of rules will apply to Mr. Lambie if he is elected and for good reason.
You have every right to jump to conclusions as to why I posted on this topic, but your reasoning is incorrect. The point I presented was not "utterly false" but a point of fact. I beleive the public has a right to know what the consequences are of having a trustee who is related, or will in the future be related, to a teacher.
This in no way detracts from Aaron's suitablility for other public office. I will always commend and encourage those who wish to provide public service to our community. We desperately need to have more who will step forward with the willingness to commit to making our community a better place to live.
Florence, you also have every right to disagree, or to agree, with my comments. If I did not agree with you regarding the value of blogs, and other media like this, I would not be posting here. However, I beleive there is a responsibility when engaging in a public debate over the future of our community. That I why I choose to post without psuedonym, so that anyone reading this post is aware of who I am and consider my comments knowing my public beliefs and stances.
I further believe that engaging in public debate holds another responsibility. That being to present issues and facts in an intelligent and educated manner and to consider points you may not have been aware of when you entered the debate.
While I embrace the blogshpere as one of the newest and most democratic mediums of human expression I also find it is often used with little intelligent thought or responsibility. The facts cannot be inconvenient just because they disagree with our chosen point of view.
The facts, Florence, can only be ... the Facts.
Clark
11:20 PM
Conflict of interest! There are two ro three major employers in the region with the school division being one of them. To eliminate people who are related/married to teachers is borderline idiotic.
Folks this is low level politics there is always a conflict of interest. You cannot take Clark seriously, just look at the absolute fiasco being made of the medical facilities in high level.
11:04 PM
Once agin it becomes obvious the intelligent thought and research are not the strong points of some 'anonymous' posters on this site.
First the school division is a large employer in the region, but within the High Level Ward it employs a little over 100 people; between the schools, custodial and other staff in the community. (The hospitality industry, the mills, farming and health care would all employee more people in the High Level area.) If you eliminate those employed byt eh FVSD and those close to them who would take conflict of interest seriously you may have approximately 250 people in the community who are too closely tied to the school division to avoid a conflict.
The High Level ward represents over 5,000 people, if half of these are adults then 2,500 would be eligible to run for elected local office. This would mean that only 10% of the eligible candidates would potentially have too close a relationship with the school division. To infer that 90% of the eligible voters could not do a excellent job of being a trustee is more than 'boderline idiotic' it is moronic.
Secondly I can only repeat what i wrote following the previous poster: "The facts cannot be inconvenient just because they disagree with our chosen point of view." The rules for conflict of interest are readily avaiable and exist for very good reasons. As well pecuniary interest can easily be avoided, and local officials do so on a regular basis. I detest when conflict of interest is treated so lightly, if it is not taken seriously it often results in the personal pocketing of taxpayers money. However, I guess that is not a concertn for the poster.
Lastly, I would like to comment on the last part of your post. Once again uniformed content enters a blog. Health issues are the responsibility of the Northern Lights Regional Health Authority in this region. If you have concerns regarding your percieved 'medical fiasco' I would suggest you contact one of them.
However, I do not believe you will find a single RHA Board member who is willing to engaging in a public discussion, on a public forum, regarding health care. There are numerous issues that face this community in the health arena, but the blog was posted by Aaron to discuss his platform and his candidacy. I have often found that those who debate from a weak position try to deflect from their lack of knowledge by changing the subject. It is shameful that the poster decided to deflect the discussion on conflict of interest by making references to health care. But then again, that is likely why they posted anonymously.
Clark
11:16 AM
Pecuniary interest --- I do so agree
with Clarke on this point.
6:37 PM
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