NORTHFIELD — The two candidates for Selectboard, Alex Meisner and Robert Leighton, publicly discussed the potential ethical issues in their respective candidacies for the first time Friday morning at a Senior Center breakfast program. Each also explained his platform and answered questions.
Questions of a potential conflict of interest first arose when Leighton, who is Northfield’s chief of police, announced his candidacy in March. Meisner’s lower-profile position on the Board of Sewer Commissioners prompted less discussion initially.
Some attendees at the breakfast expressed concern about whether Leighton would be able to serve effectively on the Selectboard, as his position with the police would require him to recuse himself from certain discussions.
“Running a department and making recommendations doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to recuse myself on everything,” Leighton said. “It’s only things that I would personally benefit from, or if I had some type of affiliation with someone else. … The ethics rules are pretty black-and-white.”
Leighton emphasized that all public officials are responsible for disclosing whatever conflicts of interest they may have.
“The difference is, my potential conflicts are out there. Everybody knows. I’m not going to be able to vote on certain things that happen with the Police Department,” Leighton said. “But you may have elected officials, and you don’t know what their connections are. You don’t know who they know, you don’t know who they’re friends with, you don’t know what affiliations they have with property owners. … So I think in some ways it actually makes it a little easier for me.”
Leighton said that he had been told by the State Ethics Commission that he could hold both positions simultaneously, and that the conversation had factored into his decision to run for Selectboard.
Meisner said that he had also been assured by the Ethics Commission that his candidacy was ethical. However, Meisner previously said that he had not contacted the Ethics Commission before Monday, and had been unaware of any conflict of interest on his part.
“I actually have trouble thinking of things where the Sewer Commission would be in any type of conflict with the Selectboard,” Meisner said. “I don’t see any. And if there is, I’d like to know.”
The candidates both discussed the future of the Pioneer Valley Regional School District. Meisner said that the district around the county should begin to consider consolidating and regionalizing their services.
Leighton said that Pioneer Valley Regional School, which is in Northfield but also serves Bernardston, Leyden and Warwick, no longer attracts students from outside the district because its curriculum and extra-curricular activities are no longer competitive with those in other districts. Efforts to restore those, he said, would bring tuition money to Northfield and the district.
“Those are the two big draws,” he said. “It’s education and it’s sports programs and equipment for the kids.”
Leighton added that the state has not financially supported the district as thoroughly as it was obligated to when the district agreement was originally made, particularly in the area of transportation costs. The Selectboard should work to address that, he said.
Both candidates said they would not support regionalization of police services.
“When people see the Northfield cruiser, they know they’re in Northfield,” Meisner said.
Leighton said that a study on potentially consolidating the police departments had been undertaken in the 1990s. The result of the study, he said, was that the costs to the towns would have been about the same.
“Honestly, I think Northfield likes the fact that their officers are theirs,” Leighton said.
Leighton said that one of the goals of his campaign was to show Northfield residents what their options for Selectboard are.
“I think in some ways, I’ve already achieved what I set out to do,” he said.