From the conservation commission’s tree subcommittee to the planning board to the ad-hoc Beaver Meadow building committee, the city of Concord has more than 50 boards and commissions meeting both regularly and sporadically.

Other than groups that make judgments, like the zoning board, these committees dive into the weeds of issues facing the city: How can Concord be a more welcoming place? Should a bus stop be relocated? What should happen to the clubhouse at the city’s golf course?

To answer those questions, the City Council asks interested citizens, representatives from partner agencies and professionals with relevant expertise to develop recommendations — though it doesn’t always follow them.

This week, evaluating its first complaints in more than a decade, the city’s ethics committee weighed concerns about a chair of one of those committees. Ethics board members weren’t unanimous about whether or not they felt that complaint should be dismissed — meaning it will go to a public hearing — but in their discussion, they raised fundamental questions about how much sway advisory committees have and the boundaries between relevant professional experience and professional conflicts of interest.

The complaint was levied by Allan Herschlag, a former city councilor. Last year, the City Council appropriated $200,000 for a study looking into the idea of adding an elevated park above the interstate — due for expansion in the next decade or so — as a deck or bridge. Greg Bakos, the project manager for VHB, the firm contracted on that study, is the chair of the Transportation Policy Advisory Committee — often referred to as TPAC. He assumed that position at the start of this year, though he’s had a seat on the committee since 2018.

In January, Bakos proposed including the park study on the committee’s agenda as one of its discussion items and, at a later meeting, summarized the status of the study and recent input from the public. Herschlag took issue with that.

Bakos declined to comment on the complaint until after the public hearing but said he’s “looking forward to the public hearing to discuss the matter further.”

In a written response submitted to the committee, Bakos denied a conflict, highlighting that he became chair after the city engaged in work with his firm, and argued that the committee wasn’t empowered to take action that could benefit him.

“I have not made any ‘actions or decisions that would affect my financial interest’ relative to the Bridge Park, or any other city project,” Bakos said. “TPAC is an advisory committee to the City Council, and is not in a position of taking actions or making any such decisions for the City Council.”

Two of the ethics board’s five voting members agreed with his logic, and three voted to continue considering the complaint at a public hearing. But board members chewed on the tension between the value of having people on city committees who are “in-the-know” and the prudence of appointing someone who has a business relationship with the city giving advice to its leaders.

“It didn’t strike me that he was doing anything wrong,” said John Sullivan, the ethics board chair. “But I sort of questioned the idea of having him on the committee in the first place. Even though he’s knowledgeable, it seems like, if his employer is contracting with the city, that it does raise a question.”

Some members felt appointing someone who works so closely with the city in their professional life to lead a city committee created a precarious ethical situation, regardless of Bakos’ actions.

“It’s a sticky wicket. It’s difficult because I don’t believe he’s done anything wrong. But you could see how quickly it could,” Tenley Callaghan said. “If you already knew this person worked for someone who was in the midst of a project, to put them in that position and put them as the chair of the committee. How else could they act? It’s very difficult.”

Like many city committees, especially that serve to give advice to the City Council, TPAC’s members are appointed by the mayor with councilors’ approval. City code gives the committee a broad mission to assist the council with development of transportation-related policy, plans and projects. It also notes both that “no member of any board, commission or committee shall introduce, speak or vote on any motion or issue in which he has a personal or pecuniary interest, direct or indirect” and that “all committees of the City Council and all subordinate boards shall be deemed advisory only, except as otherwise provided.”

Mayor Byron Champlin declined to speak directly about any issue before the ethics board. But he said he saw the line between what are valuable skills and experience in a field and what is a conflict of interest as “subjective.”

“When we talk to somebody, not only do we have to consider perceived conflicts of interest, but we also have to consider motivation. Is someone motivated to be on a committee because of their commitment to Concord and the well-being of the city?” Champlin said of his nominating approach. “It’s very difficult to create an absolute process that would call out those people who are motivated by personal interest versus those people who are motivated by civic interest.”

While he would discuss potential conflicts of interest with a nominee if he felt there was “an area of concern,” Champlin said, “I’ve really not had many interviews or conversations to date with candidates when that has been a topic or where that has been a consideration or concern.”

City Solicitor Danielle Pacik noted at the meeting that she advises boards and commissions when questions about ethics or the public’s right to know come up.

“In terms of whether votes are driving future work, generally speaking, the conflict of interest needs to be a direct conflict of interest,” Pacik said. She also stated that, “if somebody has a relationship with a company and they’re on a board, we try to avoid having that individual speak or get involved with that particular project” — which ended up being the case on the park study. “In this particular matter, we’ve decided that best practice is for any updates to be provided by staff rather than Mr. Bakos himself, going forward.”

It’s not the first time the ethics board has weighed whether an official’s professional connections impede their ability to serve impartially. While the board didn’t field a formal complaint for more than a decade — speculation about conflicts certainly still occurred during that time — among the last complaints it considered was one against Jim Bouley, the city’s former longtime mayor. Bouley, a partner at the firm Dennehy and Bouley, lobbied at the State House on behalf of businesses that had contracts with the city. Two 2012 complaints against Bouley, one of which hinged on his professional life, were dismissed.

Regardless of the result of the hearing, said ethics board member Steve Shurtleff, it could “bring clarity to the city and committees and commissions that we’ve got to be so careful and not do anything or put people in positions which might give the appearance of a conflict, even if there isn’t a conflict there.”