On Feb. 5, at the regular session meeting, the mayor and town council voted unanimously to appoint Cynthia Magazine, Councilman Alan Magazine’s wife, to the Strategic Planning Advisory Commission, a seemingly critical commission to the town that reports directly to the town council.

Mr. Magazine did abstain from the vote. In fairness, while other residents were also simultaneously appointed to this important commission, I am troubled that the wife of a council member was considered given the relationship of this commission to the council. Additionally, I find it equally troubling that neither the mayor nor the other council members voiced even the slightest objection (at least not publicly) to this clear conflict of interest.

Were there no other qualified applicants available? How many residents applied for the open SPAC positions? Is the appointment of council member spouses to commission vacancies a good precedent to set?

In the interest of transparency, I believe that the mayor and council need to explain the process for how they arrived at their unanimous decision to move forward with filling a commission seat vacancy with a council member’s spouse.