Disclosure concerns prompt debate as board narrows superintendent interview list

A dispute over possible personal relationships with an applicant briefly threatened to reshape the interview list when Treasurer Barry Powers asked the board to consider moving one candidate off the list until fuller assurances were provided.

"If one of these people served as godfather, godmother, or best man at my wedding, then I would think that we might wanna consider whether to keep them on that list or not," Powers said during discussion about disclosures. He proposed a friendly amendment to replace candidate A with another letter but the chair declined the amendment and the original motion remained for a roll call.

President Maynard told the board that disclosures were made during the closed session and that he would require a standardized conflict form: "There will be disclosures of personal relationships... I will use the same form I had to sign when one of my business partners bid on a project here." Board members who acknowledged relationships said they would state for the record that they could be impartial in interviewing.

The exchange led to a public airing of the board’s expected transparency steps — a disclosure form and an offer to have members affirm impartiality — before proceeding to interviews.