HILLSVILLE TRIES TO END CONFLICT FIGHT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 14, 1993                   TAG: 9304140237
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium
HILLSVILLE TRIES TO END CONFLICT FIGHT
Town Council has decided that one of its members was not involved in a conflict of interest, despite weeks of debate over the question.
Ron Tweed abstained from voting on a motion that the matter be dropped from the council's agenda Monday night, but the other three members voted for it.
Mayor Jack Akers had accused Tweed last month of accepting commissions for sales to the town from the business for which he works.
Later, Tweed said he checked into the matter and had unknowingly received commissions from a sale although he was not involved. He reimbursed the company for the $151 that had come to him in commissions.
He said the commissions had been an error and that the company, Hydrotex, has a separate account for the town. It was set up after he was elected to council specifically so he would not receive commissions from town orders.
Anne Harmon said she appreciated the mayor's effort to make sure that no conflicts of interest occurred during his administration, and that the matter now should be dropped. "It's obvious from the evidence that this is not a conflict of interest," she said in making the motion.
Town Attorney Greg Goad said Hydrotex had declined to provide information about the transaction because, its representatives said, the company did not want to become involved in what it perceived as a political squabble.
Goad said Tweed's statement of what happened is "all you have before you" to consider. He said there is no indication that Tweed was directly involved in the order in question, and that his financial interest in the business is not high enough to qualify for a conflict of interest under the state code.
Goad, who also is Carroll County commonwealth's attorney, said his opinion is that there is no conflict.
Tweed said he wanted the minutes of council's last meeting corrected to show he abstained from voting on accepting the bill vouchers, which included the one called into question by the mayor.
Akers said Tweed should have said he was abstaining at the time. Tweed said he did. The other three council members agreed to amend the minutes to show he abstained.
About 45 people crowded into the meeting room, many of them attracted by the exchanges at previous meetings between Akers and Tweed.
"I think you're wrong to drop it," said Mary Horton, who was defeated for her council seat last year by Tweed. "No one should mind being investigated."
"Most of the citizens I talked to felt that there should be an end to it already," Harmon replied.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB