A Plymouth Municipal Airport commissioner whose family operates several businesses at the airport has resigned, acknowledging she may have inadvertently run afoul of state conflict-of-interest law.
Karin Goulian, who served on the commission since 2019, said she didn’t realize until recently that she and her fellow commissioners did not have the special status exempting them from key portions of the law.
In her Oct. 22 resignation letter, Goulian said she mistakenly believed she was designated a “special municipal employee.” Without that status, she wrote, “I do not believe I can continue to serve consistent with the conflict-of-interest law.”
Her resignation took effect immediately. Her action followed a Sept. 25 investigation by the Independent called ‘Flying under the radar,’ which highlighted potential conflicts involving Goulian and several other current and former airport commissioners.
The Select Board will now post the opening, soliciting applicants for the position.
Select Board Chair Deb Iaquinto declined to comment on Goulian’s departure, citing ongoing litigation in superior court between the town and the Airport Commission.
In a statement, Select Board member Kevin Canty referenced Goulian’s letter, saying he does not “believe any airport commissioner should have special municipal employee status.”
“I hope to fill her vacant seat with an applicant who has aeronautics experience but has no financial or business ties to the Plymouth Airport,” he said.
In September – amid Independent inquiries about potential conflicts – Goulian asked the Select Board to make her a special municipal employee.
The board didn’t take up her request, which, if approved, would have meant that not only Goulian, but the rest of the commission, would get the same exemption. The town has been embroiled in litigation with the airport commissioners for months.
In April, the commission sued the Select Board and Town Manager Derek Brindisi, accusing him of meddling in airport business.
In her letter to the Select Board, Goulian said when she first applied for the position she made it clear she and her husband, Mike, owned aviation businesses at the airport.
“I felt then and today that my experience and aviation-related knowledge and contacts were a positive attribute for service to the Town and Airport Commission,” she wrote.
“I did not volunteer to serve because for any personal reason or to influence or affect my family’s business interests,” she wrote. “These interests were established long before I agreed to serve.”
She also said she has filed multiple ethics disclosures over the years.
It’s unclear whether any Select Board members raised the potential conflict issues when they were deciding whether to appoint Goulian or any other applicants who have financial ties to the airport.
Goulian was not the only commissioner who appeared to have financial ties to the airport, according to the Independent examination, which also found lax and incomplete recordkeeping.
The investigation found Goulian routinely recused herself from votes directly affecting her businesses but often voted on more general matters – such as lease and sewer rates – that affected her businesses’ bottom line.
At least four current and recently departed airport commissioners either hold leases, subleases, or have business dealings directly or indirectly affected by the decisions they made as public officials, the investigation found.
State law prohibits public officials from having a contract — directly or indirectly — with the agency they oversee. Leases and subleases are considered contracts, ethics experts said.
The Airport Commission has not produced the subleases, though its own lease documents require all subleases to be approved by the commission in advance and in writing.
Anyone with planes or businesses at the town-owned airport must rent the land from the Airport Commission directly, or through a sublease with another lessee.
In a July interview, Paul Worcester, the recently named chair of the Plymouth Airport Commission, rejected the suggestion that any commissioner has a conflict of interest.
Worcester said all board members take a mandatory online ethics course sponsored by the State Ethics Commission.
Following publication of the Independent examination, some airport commissioners criticized the report as overblown, arguing their potential conflicts were well known to the Select Board members who appointed them.
Goulian and others have argued their backgrounds in aviation businesses benefit the airport and the town.
State law requires at least one airport commissioner have aeronautics experience, but that doesn’t mean commissioners commonly run aviation or other businesses at the airports they oversee.
In a random sample of other airports around the state, the Independent found that at virtually no other airport did the commissioners have financial ties to the airports they oversee.
The Beverly Airport makes it a condition:
“The Airport Commission is made up of nine members who do not have any affiliation or interests, directly or indirectly, with any operating firm or lessee at the airport and aviation facilities,” the Beverly Regional Airport Commission states on its website.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.