SANATOGA PA – Attorney and Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township resident R. Kurtz Holloway, who serves as township solicitor, is going to sit this one out.
Solicitor R. Kurtz Holloway during an earlier Lower Pottsgrove board meeting.
Holloway, a partner in the Pottstown PA law firm of Wells Hoffman Holloway and Stauffer LLP, declared Thursday (Jan. 20, 2011) he has a conflict of interest in what is expected to be an otherwise relatively routine land development request to be presented in coming months to the Board of Commissioners. As a result, Holloway told board members, he will decline to represent either the township or the developers in the matter.
Holloway identified the developers as Smith Lignelli LLC, which hopes to build medical offices on land at the west side of Heritage Drive in Sanatoga village, across the street from Cappelletti Pinter and Co. The developers include physicians of Pottstown Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Associates Inc., whom Holloway said his “practice previously represented.”
Because much of the legal and development application work in the professional office complex on Heritage Drive was accepted and approved by commissioners in years past, township Assistant Manager Alyson Elliott confirmed, Holloway believes the Smith Lignelli application is likely to require “relatively minor legal services” on Lower Pottsgrove’s behalf.
“I’ll know more as their application moves toward the end of the process” and is reviewed by township staff and the Planning Commission, Holloway noted. That’s when he anticipates he can recommend special legal counsel – in effect, a substitute solicitor – to handle the township’s needs.
Commissioners acknowledged the conflict, thanked Holloway, and said they would await more information.
“Of course, we can pick whoever we want to be the alternative counsel,” said board President Jonathan Spadt, a lawyer himself, “but it probably would be good to take the advice of our own solicitor on a recommendation,” he added.
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Jan. 20):
- Potential Conflict Causes Township Solicitor To Opt Out
- All Signs Point To More Township Signage Talk Tonight
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[...] Potential Conflict Causes Township Solicitor To Opt Out Lower Pottsgrove’s solicitor, having declared a conflict of interest, said he will not represent either the township or developers in an office project being considered for land on Heritage Drive in Sanatoga. [...]