Winfield city commissioner Taggart Wall said he’s going ahead with plans to serve a paid internship with Cowley First ? a publicly funded economic development organization ? despite talk that being a paid employee of the county conflicts with serving as an elected city official.
"I never ever thought someone would be so upset about this," Wall said during a weekend interview in regard to reader comments received about the internship. "But I’ve made a decision to do it."
Wall, a student at Southwestern College, began an unpaid internship with Cowley First, an organization that aims to recruit businesses and industry to the county, in May and that job ended earlier this summer.
He worked for former director Heidi Hill, who was abruptly put on leave in July and subsequently resigned her post. Leroy Alsup ? the county’s administrator and the person with immediate oversight of Cowley First ? said the organization’s current staffing situation prompted him to consider Wall for a paid internship during the fall semester.
Wall will take on a bit more responsibility with a paid job and will work 20 hours a week and make $10 per hour. He won’t be offered health insurance or any other county benefits, Alsup said.
"Any work he does will be reviewed by someone else," the county manager said. "And he won’t make any final decisions. I don’t think he has the background or experience for that."
Each time Wall was considered for an internship, Alsup said he consulted with city and county officials and the county’s legal counsel to determine whether a conflict of interest should keep Wall from serving as an intern.
Cowley First board members also were fully aware of all plans for Wall’s internships.
Alsup and others various officials interviewed for this story came to the conclusion that nothing would prohibit Wall from taking a paid internship with the county.
Winfield city manager Warren Porter concluded that what Wall plans to do "certainly isn’t illegal."
But Porter would offer no other comment on the situation and declined to answer any additional questions. And Wall already abstained from voting on a portion of the city budget pertaining to Cowley First funding.
If Hill had an issue with Wall serving as an intern, she isn’t willing to talk about it publicly. She would only confirm Wall started an unpaid internship in May. Wall said he and Hill worked together just fine and that she seemed supportive of his efforts.
His position could have potentially given him opportunity to know why Hill left but he said he knows little more than anyone else.
"I was shocked just like everyone else," he said. "Actually, I was afraid about what might happen to my (summer) internship. I spent about a week out of the zone."
Wall said he was driving to work back in July and got an E-mail message from Alsup about Hill being placed on paid administrative leave. Wall and Hill met one more time, mostly to go over the status of certain Cowley First projects.
"I asked her what was going on, because I wanted to know," he said. "And she said she couldn’t talk about it."
Wall said Alsup and Hill appeared to get along just fine, he never saw anything to suggest otherwise. The issue with Wall’s internship did not cause any of the issues that ultimately led to Hill’s departure, Wall and other sources confirmed.
SHOULD HE?
The internship issue appears mostly to boil down to a familiar question ? just because you can do something, does that mean that you should?
Wall understands that, and said he knows the issue has much more to do with perception than what is reality. He said the job is one he has genuine interest in and allows him to get paid learning more about a job that is in a career field that interests him.
"There has to be a way for me to educate and better myself," Wall said. "And I have books and tuition to pay for. There has to be a way to do that."
Alsup, and Wall’s fellow city commissioner Phil Jarvis, said as long as there are no legal issues, any fallout from a perception of conflict would be left to Wall to handle.
"I think it’s Taggart’s problem to deal with," Jarvis said. "And I’m sure he’ll do fine in dealing with it. Certainly it isn’t the first time anyone’s had a conflict of interest to deal with."
Alsup spoke along similar lines.
"Any potential issue with a conflict of interest falls upon the individual that has the conflict," he said. "Taggart’s situation is a little unique, but I think the number of conflicts that present themselves will be limited."
Winfield’s other commissioner, Tom McNeish, said he would stay out of what he others characterized as a bit of an awkward situation.
But, he said, commenting on the intership issue would do little more than "complicate" the relationship between the commissioners.
"And I don’t want to do that," he said.
Wall said Hill required he be up front with clients about his position as a city commissioner and he plans to continue to do that as he moves forward. He thinks his situation has drawn more attention mostly because of Hill’s departure and the dust-up it caused at Cowley First.
"It’s a Heidi issue," he said. "I’m sure most of it has to do with that."
Alsup agreed with that though he didn’t directly refer to Hill’s departure.
"I think other news of the day has probably made this a little bit bigger deal than it is," he said.
