Calvert School Board Stymied in Filling Ethics Panel

Conflicts of Interest Cause Delay as Case Sits

The Calvert County Board of Education is struggling to fill vacancies on an ethics panel because guidelines intended to prevent conflicts of interest disqualify many residents from serving.

Ironically, the panel has been unable to hear a complaint alleging that a school board member had a conflict of interest.

Time is running short for the panel to evaluate the complaint, filed against Robert L. Gray (Huntingtown), who is not seeking another term in November. Since the beginning of the summer, two members of the three-person panel have resigned because of potential conflicts, and another left to run for a school board seat.

"It was one of those fluke things," said Gail Hoerauf-Bennett, school system spokeswoman.

Two positions have been filled, leaving one vacancy.

In June, a parent group said Gray's job as a real estate lawyer presented a conflict when he advocated and voted for an elementary school redistricting plan. The group said the plan, unlike another under consideration, could benefit Gray professionally by opening up part of the county for development. The parents want the school board's decision to approve the plan that Gray supported declared invalid and the redistricting process reopened.

Gray has said that his occupation presented no conflict and that he did nothing unethical.

The board has been trying to assemble an ethics panel since early this summer. It has struggled because of guidelines that disqualify anyone who is employed by the county school system, holds any elected or appointed local or federal office, works for a company that does business with the school system, does lobbying work related to the school system or is married to someone with any of those connections.

Hoerauf-Bennett said people came forward -- she didn't know how many -- before a deadline Thursday for applications to fill the vacancy on the ethics panel. The board hopes to seat the final member this month or next, she said.

"The goal is to hear it before he's off the board," Hoerauf-Bennett said of the complaint against Gray.

In the complaint, the parents say that Gray encouraged his fellow board members to vote for the redistricting plan by citing the need to limit the number of students at an elementary school scheduled to open next month in Prince Frederick. The plan would create more space for new students in the central part of the county than the other plan under consideration.

The parents also questioned why some of the boundaries of Huntingtown Elementary School, in the district where Gray and another board member live, were "off limits" to the redistricting committee that created the two plans.