This kind of case well illustrates my point that conflicts of interests do not by themselves produce moral or legal problems, because of course no-one would suggest that heterosexual teachers should be banned from teaching because of their own conflicts of interest in similar situations. On my view of conflicts, this is unproblematic, because the advantages in having expert opinions available on a committee generally outweigh the risk that office-holders will succumb to temptation and misuse their positions. This case is a bit unusual in that the conflict of interest here evidently occurred through trying to comply with state law. The law requires that two seats on the waste planning committee be held by industry representatives, but the two who are appointed, Matthews and Parkinson, are connected with a plan to site the county landfill in Barker township, where the residents charge conflict of interest. It is not clear in what the conflict consists, but presumably the accusation is that Matthews and Parkinson's firms will benefit if the dump is situated in Barker.
Conflict of interest is easy to charge and hard to disprove.
Often it seems that appearance of conflict amounts to nothing more than someone saying that there is such a conflict. Since passions about things like landfills are apt to become intense, it is politically foolish, even if not necessarily ethically objectionable, for anyone to sit on a planning board where even the whisper of conflict of interest is possible. There must be other industry representatives who don't have proposals before the County Waste Board. Neither Matthews nor Parkinson want to resign. They seem to have made it a point of personal pride not to succumb to pressure which they consider unjustified.