Ask Mr. Answer Person: "Should a Decorah City Council member recuse herself from voting on municipal electric utility issues?"

(Darryl e-mails: "A recusal is needed by the new Decorah City Council member who is the spouse of an executive of Decorah Power.")

Mr. Answer Person says: "You're speaking of Johanna Bergan, whose husband is Joel Zook, the secretary of the Decorah Power board (that's an unpaid position).  The issue was discussed Tuesday night by Assistant City Attorney John Anderson.

First of all, Mr. Answer Person finds it amusing that the question is based on a belief that husbands and wives always see things the same way and vote the same way--you must have had a different marriage than Mr. Answer Person's!

But it's certainly true that elected officials can have conflicts of interest.  Anderson told city council members, "It's not a conflict of interest now--but it could be."  So where do conflicts of interest crop up?  Anderson said it's usually in cases involving the financial impact of votes.  In other words, there's no conflict of interest in voting on a measure to allow a public referendum on an issue--there's nothing to be gained financially from this vote because it just allows the public to weigh in on an issue.

But a vote to financially fund a public utility or a vote to hire a full-time paid Communications Director is a different issue.  So Anderson says he will present some more guidelines in the near future, but doesn't see any problems now--everything is in the discussion stage.

In the meantime, Johanna Bergan openly talked about the issue Tuesday night and that's always a good sign.  As long as conflict of interest guidelines are drawn up by Anderson for future reference for city council members, this current situation doesn't seem like it will pose a problem."