August primary voters put Alpena Township in a precarious position.

By choosing challenger Abbi Kaszubowski over incumbent Nathan Skibbe in the Republican primary and with no Democrat running, voters created a serious potential for conflicts of interest and may have hamstrung the township supervisor from acting on or even discussing one of the biggest issues facing the township board.

Kaszubowski is unopposed in next week’s election and is all but guaranteed to claim the term that begins Nov. 20.

The supervisor, a full-time position at Township Hall, usually acts as the township’s chief executive, overseeing day-to-day operations of the township and managing township employees — including the township fire chief.

However, Kaszubowski’s husband is a township firefighter and president of the township firefighters union, creating the potential — we have no reason to believe it would happen, but it creates the potential — for Kaszubowski to steer township policy and funds in a way that benefits her and her family.

Voters may create another conflict next week, because independent trustee candidate Bev Banks’ husband also works as a township firefighter.

On Monday, the township’s labor attorneys from the firm Fahey, Schultz, Burzych, Rhodes, of Okemos, recommended the township board enact policies removing Kaszubowski from the Fire Department chain of command.

Not only should Kaszubowski abstain from any votes regarding the Fire Department, Kaszubowski should not oversee the township fire chief, as the supervisor usually does, should not serve as the township’s personnel officer, as the supervisor usually does, and should not serve on the township board’s Personnel Committee, as the supervisor usually does.

Kaszubowski and Banks should not even sit in on closed-session discussions of the Fire Department in which the pair might hear confidential information they might share with their husbands, the attorneys said.

“Without question, the election of Kaszubowski and potential election of Banks raise concerns about conflicts of interest, and perhaps just as importantly, raise questions about the appearance of impropriety if either were to take part in decision making that impacted their respective spouses,” a report from the attorneys to the township board says. “To be clear, we do not assume that Kaszubowski or Banks would attempt to use a board seat to further their own personal interests. Instead, we routinely advise our clients that the risk to public trust of even the appearance of a conflict is just as damaging to the board’s ability to effectively manage and govern the township as an actual conflict under state law.”

The township board did not take action after receiving the attorneys’ recommendation on Monday.

They need to take action before the next supervisor — most likely Kaszubowski — is sworn in on Nov. 20.

We agree with the attorneys. We have no reason to believe Kaszubowski or Banks would do anything improper, but even the possibility of impropriety could erode public trust in the township’s activities. Any raise granted to firefighters — deserved or no — could be called into question.

The Fire Department has been one of the biggest issues facing the township. The department requires hundreds of thousands of dollars a year out of the township’s general fund for operations, in addition to the money in the township’s public safety fund from property taxes designated for the Fire Department. Voters in 2022 twice rejected a proposed tax hike to fully fund the Fire Department.

The township board has in the past entertained the idea of outsourcing firefighting operations, before ultimately deciding to keep them in house.

But the strains on the budget won’t go away, and neither will discussions about how to ease those strains, and those discussions have flared emotions among township employees and residents.

The township can’t afford even a whiff of impropriety in those discussions.

The board must accept its attorneys’ recommendations and vote to separate Kaszubowski and Banks from Fire Department considerations.