Baird's Conflict of Interest

This is even more interesting. Doing a little Youtube research reveals that Baird was recently confronted by a town resident regarding his apparent conflict of interest in serving on two elected boards at the same time, one of which has budgetary power over the other. Baird, it turns out, is also an elected fire commissioner in the Village of Bloomingburg (from the district website):

District Officers

Commissioner John Tobin as Chairman

Commissioner Richard Knibbs

Commissioner Larry Arnold

Commissioner Harold Baird

Commissioner Russ Wood

Commissioner Jim Beaurmen

Commissioner Thomas Dempsey

Treasurer Richard Diffendale

Secretary Kim Baird

The resident, whose name is Richard Morris, cites a NY State Comptroller opinion that the two posts are "incompatible." The reason for this is that the town has budgetary power over the fire district, at least partially. So how can Baird make an unbiased decision in regard to fire district funding? Well, he can't, can he?:



Baird is apparently using his status as fire commissioner in his campaign literature, according to Morris.

Gonna have to do some research on this one.