BENTON – A Benton realtor is asking the Benton City Council to amend its recently passed Conflict of Interest ordinance and have professional exclusions for eligibility specific to the Zoning and Planning Commission be removed.
These include but are not limited to real estate attorneys, mortgage lenders and brokers, real estate agents or brokers and title insurance company owners and/or issuers of title insurance.
Paula Arpasi served on the Zoning and Planning Commission until last month and was told by the city’s zoning administrator recently that her term was up and was no longer eligible to serve due to the new ordinance.
Finance Commissioner Christopher Kays was behind the creation of the ordinance that the city council passed unanimously last month. Arpasi wanted to know from Kays what research was done to determine that these occupations cause more of a conflict of interest than others. Kays says from his standpoint, there’s a financial conflict of interest for all of those listed in the ordinance.
Arpasi responded.
Paul Coons, who is also a realtor and Arpasi’s father, also called for the ordinance to be repealed or withdrawn and for a new study to be done to see what benefits this ordinance has for the city. Coons says there are a lot of unhappy people about this and it doesn’t set very well with them “when you smack us in the face like that.”
Kays says if there’s a push to reevaluate the ordinance, he is fine with reviewing it. He says ordinances can be amended, changed, repealed, modified or they can be thrown out altogether.
More info: Conflict of Interest Discussion
