WINONA LAKE - When do private enterprise and public responsibility clash? At what point does an elected official, who also is involved in community development projects, cross that invisible line into conflict of interest?

Brent L. Wilcoxson is president of Winona Lake's town council; he's also a developer in Winona Lake. Many of the decisions he makes as a councilman ultimately affect his livelihood.

Charges of conflict of interest began while Wilcoxson was running for town council in 1995. Issues involved include:

• Use of town equipment and personnel for work on private property while he was a candidate.

• Having the town pave Terrace Drive before his historic homes tour.

• Reduction of the sewer rate for the Winona Hotel.

Some Winona Lake residents believe Wilcoxson is entitled to his development projects or to serving as town council president. They just think he shouldn't do both at the same time.

"I think what Brent is doing is good for the town, to a point," said one Winona Lake resident who asked not to be identified. "Unfortunately, he's not the person who should be doing it because he's a member of the town board."

Exactly what Wilcoxson is doing, town residents readily admit, will improve the looks, if not the fortunes, of Winona Lake. Whether it also will improve Wilcoxson's financial status - at taxpayer expense - is what most Winona Lakers want to know.

"I think if he wants to clean up Winona Lake and beautify it ... it's great, but do it as a private citizen, don't do it as a member of the town council, because anything he wants will be passed," a woman said. "He's after something and the taxpayers are going to have to pay for it."

Of the accusations of conflict of interest, Wilcoxson said last month: "Conflict, I guess, in itself would speak to the fact that there's some irreconcilable difference of ideas, and my interest in Winona Lake is the same interest that I have in my own family life or my church or anything that I do, and that's to see it be the best that it can be. The idea that there's some conflict of interest, I don't even know how the idea comes about because, if you look at what I've done, what are we doing? We're improving Winona Lake. So where's the conflict?"

The conflict, some residents said, is that it just looks bad. "I don't know if it's a legal conflict of interest, but it looks shady," another resident said. "The end result is like Terrace Drive - it only benefits him, it doesn't benefit anybody else."

Terrace Drive is, perhaps, the most visible example so far of what townspeople see as Wilcoxson's lack of concern about mixing town and personal business.

In a town council meeting in March 1996, Wilcoxson stepped out of his official role as president of the town council and approached the council as representative of Winona Lake Restoration Partners. He asked the town to pave Terrace Drive, a cul-de-sac that was never officially deeded to the town.

The Terrace Drive paving project was already on the town's five-year plan for street work, Wilcoxson said at the time, and his company would pay half the cost of paving, gutters and curbing.

What looked bad, Winona Lakers said later, was that Winona Restoration Partners owned and restored the houses on Terrace Drive. The paving was scheduled for April, in time for "Historic Homes on Parade," on May 11 and 12, whose purpose was to showcase and sell the restored houses.

Wilcoxson said last month he doesn't understand the controversy over the Terrace Drive issue, and compared the paving project to other development around Winona Lake, such as Stonehenge and Heritage Lake.

"Terrace Drive is no different except that was done before we even improved it. We more than doubled the assessed valuation of the properties on Terrace Drive even though there are still three that are unrestored. Should we pave that street? Sure we should," he said.

"Anybody that knows anything about construction knows that we're not making any money. So maybe by having that street paved we lost less money than we otherwise would have. On the other hand, we contributed three-fourths of the cost for improvements, so did it cost us more to get that done or did it not, who knows, that would be undefinable. Yeah, we probably wouldn't have paved it had I not requested it, but I was't part of the voting discussion, I didn't vote, I made that presentation as a developer. ... "

The Terrace Drive paving project occurred while the town-services-on-private-property issue was still fresh in the minds of many Winona Lake residents.

In late April 1995, Wilcoxson reportedly asked street department employees to do some excavation work on his private property. The work, done over a two- or three-day period, was not approved by the town council either before or after it was done. In a town council meeting on May 23, Wilcoxson reimbursed the Winona Lake town council $524.37 for the work.

Earlier this year Wilcoxson again approached the council as a representative of Winona Restoration Partners, to discuss sewer rates for unoccupied buildings. Currently renovating the Winona Hotel, Wilcoxson asked the council to reduce the hotel's minimum sewer bill from $225 per month to $27 - the cost of administrative fees. The hotel is not using water and has no water meter, he said.

The town council approved his request, but said the town's policy on the minimum amount charged for commercial buildings would be changed for everyone.

Wilcoxson has been careful to file conflict of interest statements with the state. His most recent statement, filed March 14, says, under "description of financial interest": "Official is involved in development of property that is in, or anticipated to be in, a TIF District. Property taxes from such development will be used in ways that may benefit official's development. Official is affiliated with Winona Lake Historical Society, Grace Schools, Lakeland Academy and Grace Brethren Church. All these organizations may derive benefits from decisions made by official."

Wilcoxson said there is a definite advantage to being financially involved in a community where he's also a public servant.

"Should all public servants divorce themselves from any economic activity within the district in which they serve? That being the case, then we'd all have to sell our homes, if you want to get down to the extreme of that logic," he said. "We want to encourage people who are involved in economic growth to be involved in our governmental services. Who better to make decisions than people that they're going to impact? Because my interest is going to be exactly the same as Winona Lake's, because I want to see the thing improve. Because if we make bad decisions from a governmental standpoint, that will very negatively impact what happens to me personally from an economic standpoint."

To residents who accuse him of using his elected office to better his financial position, he said: "I think that we need to be held accountable, and talking about that in public is the right thing to do and I have no problem with that. I'd say come to the meetings and see." [[In-content Ad]]