By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- His opponent's employment has been a key issue in Ward 3 City Council challenger Allan Polak's campaign.

On his campaign Web site, on his Facebook page and in two candidate forums, Polak has maintained that Ward 3 incumbent Mike Woodard has a potential, and potentially disqualifying, conflict of interest because he works for Duke University.

"Would you feel free to vote against your employer when it might cost them millions?" he asked in an Oct. 1 Facebook posting.

Polak hasn't been afraid to push the argument, either. Earlier this week, during a forum at N.C. Central University, he questioned whether Duke's leaders see an advantage to giving Woodard plenty of time to work on council business.

"He's often referred to as the candidate who's everywhere all the time, at various activities throughout the day," Polak said. "What relationship exists between my opponent and Duke University that allows this?"

The query appeared to resonate with at least one member of the audience, who asked Woodard whether he's been consulting Duke leaders about future plans to run for mayor.

Woodard was plainly annoyed, telling audience members that he's able to devote time to council business because he works hard and has a job in IT administration, that has flexible hours.

"It's very easy to work two jobs when you work hard and work smart," he said.

The squabble has been unusual given that Woodard's strongest support has come from the near-Duke neighborhoods -- Watts Hospital-Hillandale, Trinity Park and Old West Durham -- that historically have been most prone to quarrel with university leaders.

Woodard's job is also well out of the loop of Duke's policy-making. He helps run the software systems the school and its health care system use to keep track of purchasing, employee record and other business transactions.

The issues that Polack says, on his Web site, he sees as the dominant ones facing the city are its image, crime and economic development.

He also raises the issue of roadside panhandling, which has been periodically debated by Durham's elected officials. Polack says the council needs to take a tougher stance. "Allowing these panhandlers to line our city streets is not an act of compassion," Polack says on his Web site. "A multitude of non-profit and government sponsored organizations exist to assist individuals such as these -- their place is not on our busy highways."

"If elected I would work with the council and law enforcement to pass ordinances strictly prohibiting highway-side panhandling in Durham," Polack adds.

Polak is a relative newcomer to North Carolina who moved to the state in 2004 and until 2007 lived in and served on volunteer boards in Chapel Hill.

That year's race in Chapel Hill played out during one of the occasional peaks in tension between town and gown over campus-expansion issues. And Hill had a ready-made target -- fellow candidate Dianne Bachman, an architect in UNC's facilities planning office. Hill and his supporters argued that Bachman had a disqualifying conflict of interest, and voters seemed to agree because she finished out of the running.

Polak, another IT pro, is well traveled. His application for a volunteer board slot in Orange County in 2005 listed stints in Israel, China and India.

He started professional life as a journalist, in Israel researching apocalyptic Christian cults that had set up shop on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives in 1999 in anticipation of the new millennium.

He wrote an article about them that said some of the groups' members bore watching. Israel's security services apparently agreed, because shortly before the article saw print, they kicked 21 of the cultists out of the country.