Relevancy of profession on candidacy

In My Humble Opinion
1

Our community is having an election for village board in April. Of the candidates, one is identified as a residential developer. It seems as tho certain folks feel very strongly both ways about the relevancy of this guy’s occupation on his candidacy.

As in many boring suburban communities, residential issues such as zoning, teardowns, building codes, variances, make up a significant part of the village board’s workload. Our town has just about as many tear-downs as anywhere, where older, smaller housing stock is torn down and replaced by larger pricier homes.

The position of trustee is an unpaid part-time position, so incumbents continue their regular occupations during their terms.

I find myself going back and forth on this. On the one hand, I’m not sure an individual’s chosen profession should preclude them from public office. OTOH, I’m wondering whether he ought to recuse himself from certain actions/decisions, and if so, how broad of an area he should stay out of.

Any thoughts?

2

There are plusses and minuses in your case. As a developer, he may understand issues better than others. But the potential for conflict of interest is immense. It’s not so much when he has a zoning issue – he’d have to recuse himself – but what if a competitor has one? Also, even recused, he’d be pals with the board, which isn’t a good situation.

For other issues, though, I don’t see a problem.

3

I was once at an all-candidates’ debate (well, all but the Liberal, who later won - this was back in the day when the Grits could have run a tree squirrel in this riding and it would have won) and they were introducing us by our names and professions. They introduced the Marijuana Party guy, and described his profession: gardener.

The roars of laughter were not quelled by his insistence that he was “a landscaper! A landscaper!”