I have great respect for Barbara Carpenter, a strong, independent voice for good government in our town.
But she’s dead wrong in staying on the town council now.
This week, she won election as the head of the town’s teachers’ union, a position she says she cannot hold while serving on the council because it would be a conflict of interest.
So, she told the Hartford Courant, she will leave the council when she takes over the union in July.
But the simple truth is that whatever conflict of interest she will have come July exists already. She is now the president-elect of the union, which presents just as much potential for problems as if she were the president.
“There would be a conflict of interest if I were on the council and I was serving both groups,” Carpenter told the Courant recently. “Ethically, it would be wrong for me to do that.”
Carpenter has served our town well. But it’s time for her to resign.
The West Hartford Blog 