Wahluke School Board discusses possible conflict of interest

MATTAWA — Is it a conflict of interest for a non-profit to farm a piece of school property and collect the profits when one of their board members is also on the school board? That was one of the topics of discussion during the Wahluke School Board meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 10.

The discussion started when Wahluke School District Superintendent Robert Eckert mentioned a hay field that the school owns for use in future development.

“WEO (Wahluke Enrichment Organization) had been involved in cutting and baling,” Eckert said. “We need to get a plan of what we’re going to do into the future. We won’t be building for a couple more years.”

When asked if WEO would be able to farm the piece of ground again this coming year, Seth Weeks, both a member of the school board and vice-president of the WEO, said that the organization had put a lot of money into the irrigation issues at the field and that he felt like they hadn’t gotten a good shot a farming it.

When asked how much WEO was paying in rent for the property, Eckert said that the school district didn’t receive any profit from them and that they weren’t the only people to have farmed the land that hadn’t paid rent.

“We leased it out to another gentleman,” Eckert said. “He’ll never pay.”

Board member Mabeline Pantaleon pointed out that WEO was getting profits from the school property. Board member Jesse Chiprez also had concerns with WEO farming it because of a possible conflict of interest.

“With him being on the WEO and on the school board and farming that, is anyone going to look at that like its a conflict of interest?” Chiprez asked. “Does CTE have any animals we can give it to?”

“They wouldn’t take it,” Weeks said.

“We didn’t want it to sit idle,” said Lorraine Jenne, school board chair. “WEO was the only one willing to do anything with it.”

The piece of property in question has a reputation for having poor irrigation systems on it. While the school doesn’t have any immediate plans to build on the property, they do hope to receive money in the next few years and expand. It is hard to rent the property due to the irrigation issues and uncertainty of when they will be building.

Chiprez’s concern with WEO farming the property is what it would look like for a school board member’s non-profit to be profiting from school property. He was concerned that it might cause problems in the community.

“We don’t want to see ourselves in a conflict of interest,” Pantaleon said.

Weeks commented that the person who farmed the land the year before put the profits from the field into their pocket.

“WEO cleaned up the junk pile and planted the pumpkin patch,” Weeks said. “It came out of their bank account. Who’s doing things for kids?”

“A lot of people are doing things for kids,” Chiprez replied.

Jenne pointed out that WEO had spent the most money on the field.

“One of the problems with a long-term lease is we don’t know when we’re going to build,” Jenne said. “They spend money on the water system for us to kick them off.”

“I don’t want to see our school involved in farming,” said Craig Sabin, another board member. “It’s too expensive.

Eckert told the board that he would look into what options were available to the school and present the results to the board at a later meeting.