Did Bill McCain Violate Wicomico County Ethics Rules?
It’s a rare occasion when I am able to attend a Wicomico County Council meeting. Although I try to watch the meetings on PAC-14, I was unable to watch the March 18, 2008 council meeting. Therefore, it was with great interest that I read a charge made by local blogger Bill Duvall that Wicomico Councilman Bill McCain (D - At-Large) had behaved unethically by performing an appraisal on property that a developer wanted an easement on.
A few days later, Duvall reaffirmed his charge, claiming that he had rechecked the issue. I’ve deliberately shied away from this issue because I had not been able to view the meeting. Well, I finally got a chance to view the meeting yesterday. Unfortunately, Duvall misstated what occurred.
Here’s a synopsis:
- A request for a utility easement was made for the Iott / CrossRoads business park development. McCain immediately stated that he had to recuse himself because he had a business relationship with the developers.
- Councilman Joe Holloway questioned whether or not McCain’s actions were ethical.
- No one objected sending the matter to the County Ethics Commission.
Now Holloway was absolutely correct in questioning the matter and questioning McCain’s behavior. McCain was not totally clean in the way he handled this. When he told the Council that he would recuse himself, that was it. He should have never entered the discussion over this matter, which he did. In addition, McCain stated that he was recusing himself because of a “business relationship”. Now this certainly wasn’t a lie, but some people would take McCain’s explanation as being less than honest since he had actually done an appraisal on the piece of property in question so that the developers could use it in asking for their easement.
However, Duvall wants to infer something far more nefarious:
The Council was asked to approve the conveyance of the easement in consideration of the payment of a sum to the county determined by an appraisal. Buried deep in the paperwork submitted to the Council was the identity of the appraiser.
Who was it, you ask? Oh no, it can’t be Billy Mac, can it? But he never disclosed to the Council or the public that he was double dipping and playing both sides of the deal.
McCain recused himself right from the start. Granted, he should have immediately disclosed that he had performed the appraisal for this particular piece of property; but he certainly didn’t deny the fact.
Hopefully we will hear from the Ethics Commission in the near future. I hope that they draw the correct conclusion and that McCain takes their ruling to heart. However, to paraphrase Joe Holloway - I don’t think that McCain’s appraisal was wrong, I just think that the whole thing doesn’t look right.
Holloway is correct. While there is no doubt that McCain’s job will be the source of countless conflicts during his tenure on council, as long as they are properly disclosed and McCain recuses himself there shouldn’t be a problem.
cross posted at Salisbury News
Technorati Tags: Maryland, Wicomico, politics, Wicomico politics, Joe Holloway, Bill McCain, ethics, Bill Duvall, bloggingSphere: Related Content
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