Board members refuse to recuse themselves

Typical bought politicians. Members of the College of DuPage board who were elected in large part due to funding from an education political action committee based on the college campus and funded by a teachers union.

The Daily Herald is reporting the four members of the board (three new and the current chairman) refuse to recuse themselves from negotiations over college faculty salaries. During Monday's board meeting, outgoing member Kory Atkinson displayed two oversized checks totaling $100,000. The checks symbolized the amount of money spent by the teachers union on the election of the board members. College of DuPage Friends of Education helped Kim Savage, Nancy Svoboda and Sandy Kim win seats on the board last month.

Because the issue of taxpayer money is at hand, should the board members be beholden to a teachers organization - especially when it comes to the board voting on faculty salary. All citizens have a right to lobby their government, but if the members of the government are beholden to a small segment of the population, it leads to an appearance of a conflict of interest when it comes to legislation concerning that segment.

The board members must recuse themselves from voting on faculty salaries or the stain of corruption will smear this board.