Holdover School District 300 Board Members Pooh-Pooh Conflict of Interest

In David Fitzgerald’s Northwest Herald article about Monday night’s discussion of a conflict of interest policy appear the following comments from two holdover District 300 school board members:

“‘There is no pay-to-play here,’ board member Mary Warren said. ‘We take the low bid, and I think this could hinder us.’”

and

“Board member Karen Roeckner called the measure a slap in the face to the district’s vendors, who she said supported the district without asking for anything in return.”

The Daily Herald’s Jameel Naqvi used the $5,000 that architects Burnidge Cassell and Associates contributed early in the 2006 Advance 300 campaign in the beginning of his story:

Last year, Burnidge Cassell and Associates, an Elgin-based design firm, donated $5,000 to Advance 300, the group that successfully campaigned for two large tax hikes in Community Unit District 300.

After the election, District 300 awarded Burnidge Cassell a no-bid contract to design new schools that would be financed by money the district gained in the 2006 referendum.

The effort to pass a conflict of interest policy would prohibit companies from doing business with the school district for two years after making a contribution of $5,000 or more.

We’ll see if either of the Heralds follows up on McHenry County Blog’s “Whoooh!” story.

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In the picture, Mary Warren is the out-of-focus woman to the left of an in-focus Karen Roeckner.


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