Serving two masters

Margaret Gibbons has been covering the Montgomery County Courthouse for a long time. And when she smells something fishy, she tends to share it with her readers.

From her latest column in The Doylestown Intelligencer:

Forget about formal ethics policies. Forget about legal conflicts of interest.

Anyone, using semantics, can get around both.

Instead, just use common sense and focus on right and wrong.

And there is just something not right about Montco solicitor Barry M. Miller serving as the county's top legal adviser and also as solicitor of the county voter services office while also serving as the treasurer of Matthews' campaign committee, even if that campaign position is in title only.

The decisions and advice by the county solicitor and voter services solicitor should be nonpartisan. Maybe they are.

However, the public cannot help but wonder if a person so much in Matthews' inner circle as to hold a title in his campaign committee is looking out for the public's best interest or Matthews' best interests. Come on, Barry, give up some of those hats to eliminate that type of wondering.

Read the full column at the newspaper's Web site.