Posted by: Noël Jones
Colin McEvoy of the Express-Times reports that Michael Brett, a new candidate for the EASD School Board has dropped out of the race due to a conflict of interest that legally prohibits him from continuing to be paid by government funds for his regular career on the Easton Redevelopment Authority while running for office.
That leaves three candidates remaining for Kerry Myers Region II seat (and Myers is not running for re-election): Frank Pintabone, Ronnie DelBacco, and Bill Timmann.
And there is another challenge to candidacy on the table: Ronnie DelBacco is accusing Frank Pintabone of improper filing of a petition. If Frank Pintabone gets thrown out of the race, then there will only be two candidates...
For information on candidates running for other seats, see my previous post.
What are readers thinking so far about how these races are shaping up?
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8 comments:
Not to put too fine a point on it....the challenge to Pintabone's petition is only for the Republican primary(the circulator doesn't live in the Easton Area School District, gotta read the rules). He will still be on the ballot on the Democrat ticket. He cross-filed, as did all but Brett.
Brett was a last minute desperation attempt by Vulcano
& Co. to run somebody besides Pintabone.
Oh no. There is no choice if its just DelBacco and Timman. When are we going to start having qualifications for people running a $158 million school district????
From what tachitup says, it sounds like Pintabone is still in it, just having one petition challenged...
If Brett can't run for school board why can a fire fighter run for Mayor. Seems silly to me. They are supported by federal funds in some way.
Anon 9:49--good point...if anyone knows the answer to this question, please post so we can all understand...
I'm guessing that Mike Krill would resign from the EFD if elected mayor. The same can not be said for an elected school board member who needs his ERA job to survive.
At least that is my take on it. I invite clarifications
DRL
The difference is that the mayorship is a paid position and school board members get zero. It's a thankless, but very important job, and they get nothing to take the flack that they do. The good ones suffer the criticism of the bad, and the meetings are often really long (some last year went past midnight).
Mike Brett made the only decision possible--unless, of course he were independently wealthy and didn't need a job in the first place...
This whole issue centers on the Hatch Act which states that federal employees or individuals who work for an agency that received federal dollars must resign before they can begin campaigning for a position with the agency they are/were working for.
Of course in this case Mr. Krill would RETIRE not resign from his fire fighting position and receive a pension fromt he city's underfunded pension funds and also a salary for being mayor, or council, or whatever position an employee chooses to campaign for. His health benefits would be paid by the city either as mayor or as a retired firefighter since I believe they get lifetime benefits.
The Hatch Act tries to avert problems and conflicts of interest before they happen. If the city and or the fire department receive federal funds I guess that would be an interesting situation.
Maybe someone has the legal answer. I don't but would love to know.
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