NL officer wrong voting on chief's issues

It did not take long for New London police officer and newly elected City Councilor Anthony Nolan to find himself in a conflict-of-interest position. On Tuesday the City Council had on its agenda two items concerning Mr. Nolan’s boss, Police Chief Margaret Ackley. One item sought council approval to allocate $25,000 to settle a legal complaint the chief filed against the city. The second issue involved ratification of a four-year contract for the chief, with a raise and payment for prior comp time accrued.

Mr. Nolan voted on both issues. He should not have.

In the end, his decision did not affect the outcome on the two matters. The council rejected the settlement on a 4-3 vote and turned down the contract by a 5-2 margin. In both cases Mr. Nolan voted yes — to approve the settlement and the contract — and so his votes did not influence the result. Had he abstained, as he should have, the two measures would have been defeated anyway, only by larger margins.

The conflicts in these matters are obvious. City employees should not be in a position of voting whether to give cash settlements and raises to their supervisors.

Mr. Nolan said he ruminated on whether to vote, discussed it with other people, but did not seek a legal opinion from the city attorney. In the end, he said he concluded the language of the City Charter obligated him to vote. We can’t agree. We see no language in the charter that would deny a councilor the option of abstaining from a vote in which the councilor has a personal or professional conflict.

We also believe Mr. Nolan when he tells us that his position on the police department and relationship with his chief did not influence his vote. He casts the votes he considered the correct ones, he told us. Yet the perception remains a bad one. Some, certainly, will question any future promotions he receives from the chief.

Rather than anything devious, we suspect Mr. Nolan’s votes are largely the product of his status as a political novice. Hopefully, he will learn.

The matter brings up the larger issue of having city employees on the council. The council president, Michael Passero, is a city firefighter serving his second term. The City Charter contains no prohibition against electing city employees. And Mr. Nolan was cleared to run under the federal Hatch Act because his position is not dependent on federal funds. That leaves it up to voters to judge whether such candidates should be elected to the council or not. The voters chose both Mr. Passero and Mr. Nolan knowing their jobs and potential conflicts.

And, frankly, Mr. Passero has proved to be a good councilor and the civically active Mr. Nolan was a strong candidate. It’s a good thing when New London employees live in and have a vested interest in the city they work for. Prohibiting any of them from serving on the council would eliminate many potentially good councilors.

The better option, it appears, is for these employees, once elected, to abstain from votes and debates directly related to their departments. This is the approach Mr. Passero has long taken.

The conflict issue can be taken too far. In our opinion, for example, voting on the entire city budget, the most important, over arching policy document, does not present a direct conflict. Conversely, voting on a labor contract that determines spending and pay in a councilor’s particular department would be a conflict.

We acknowledge it’s a fine and difficult line to draw. Mr. Passero has been careful to keep on the correct side of that line. Mr. Nolan should do likewise going forward.