Craigie Sanders, in addition to serving on the current board of directors for the InterNeighborhood Council, is also the President-elect of that group. I believe his term starts sometime in the fall. He is certainly entitled to act in his own, and his employer's, interest in supporting this rezoning. However, it needs to be acknowledged that those interests directly contradict his responsibilities as an officer of the InterNeighborhood Council. ...

To my knowledge ... what happened was that a board member of the INC who did have a financial stake, inserted himself, acting in a non-INC capacity, into the neighborhood's own internal decision-making process. This happened after the neighborhood had submitted a petition opposing the rezoning, which would have raised the bar in Council to 6 votes for approving the rezoning. Under those conditions, the rezoning application would have failed.

As an individual, and as the attorney for the developer, Craigie Sanders had every right to engage in this process. However, the conflict of interest raised by his actions with his position within INC could not be clearer. If the organization is to maintain its relevance, and its authority to speak for the neighborhoods of Durham, Craigie Sanders needs to resign from its board, and not serve his term as president.