BENTON – The Benton City Council took no action on a conflict of interest ordinance presented by Finance Commissioner Christopher Kays dealing with advisory boards that report to the city at Monday night’s meeting.
Kays reminded the council that it passed the availability to actually install this ordinance last September.
Kays shared with the council a document from Lake Forest dealing with conflict of interest and realized that some of the language in the document will not pertain to Benton because Lake Forest is a very large city near Chicago.
Kays says there have been some incidents in the past where the city has had people on its advisory boards with bona fide conflicts of interest continuing to sway opinion in their advisory position as it comes to council. Kays doesn’t think that’s appropriate.
Kays says the city can enact some of the language from the Lake Forest document into Benton’s ordinance fairly painlessly.
Kays wants the city to have a clean ordinance everyone can agree on so nothing in it will have to change down the road.
The City Council is expected to look at this ordinance again and possibly approve it at its first meeting next month.
