Castor says Hoeffel, Matthews violate Sunshine Law with breakfast meetings

Call it Breakfastgate.

Montgomery County's feuding commissioners are known lately for serving up disdain and dishing out insults at one another during their biweekly public meetings.

But their latest dustup - which has one commissioner calling for a criminal investigation - could leave the other two with egg on their faces.

During the public comments portion of Wednesday's meeting, Keith Phucas, a reporter for the Times-Herald newspaper in Norristown, spoke from his seat in the crowded gallery. He accused Commissioners Chairman James R. Matthews and Vice Chairman Joe Hoeffel of deciding county business away from public scrutiny - over biweekly breakfast meetings at an East Norriton diner.

Matthews, a Republican, brushed off such talk, saying he and his Democratic colleague, Hoeffel, merely met for friendly breakfasts at Jem Restaurant, a 1950s-retro establishment on Swede Road. Their discussions rarely stray beyond the Eagles, the Phillies, family, and food, he said.

Hoeffel, too, called the breakfasts "strictly social" and denied that any government discussions took place. Such discussions could violate the state's Sunshine Act, which requires all government business to be conducted in public.

Still, Phucas insisted, the two had been overheard in the diner. He said a woman sitting nearby had even taken notes.

That prompted Matthews to liken the unidentified woman to a fabled secret agent.

"Bring this 007 forward," he scoffed, "and we'll discuss it at the next meeting."

But then details came out in Thursday's Times-Herald. The woman turned out to be a reporter for the newspaper. Suddenly, all three commissioners were taking the flap over flapjacks more seriously.

The Times-Herald article outlined two recent conversations eavesdropped on by the reporter at the table next to Matthews and Hoeffel.

The commissioners' table talk, the paper reported, included bond issues, board appointments, and the obtaining of state money for road repairs, all of which were items on subsequent county meeting agendas.

Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr., who typically fails to conceal his enmity for Matthews and Hoeffel, remained uncharacteristically reserved as accusations flew back and forth at Wednesday's meeting.

But in a statement issued after the Times-Herald article appeared, Castor, a former Montgomery County district attorney, got his game face back on.

He described the Matthews-Hoeffel breakfast talks as a disappointment and called on law enforcement to investigate to the fullest.

"The livelihoods of 3,000 county employees, the future of Pennsylvania's wealthiest county and its 800,000 residents is being decided over coffee and eggs by a secret cabal," Castor's statement said.

"They have complained for three years that I have not been at the table with them, when the truth is they have never invited me," the statement said. Not that Castor would have accepted: "An honest man has no place at their table," his statement said.

Hoeffel, too, gave the accusation more serious attention on Thursday, hastily organizing a news conference. He conceded that he and Matthews had often received briefings from county staffers over their morning meals but said they had never discussed any of it until they were at public meetings.

Asked whether Castor had ever been invited to the breakfast briefings, Hoeffel scoffed.

"Then it wouldn't be any fun," he said. "I don't want to have breakfast with Bruce Castor."

The spat is only the latest to feature Castor on one side and Hoeffel and Matthews on the other. The three have bickered publicly and in private since taking office in 2008, when Matthews crossed party lines, struck a power-sharing deal with Hoeffel, and edged out Castor for the chairman's seat.

Since then, Castor has on various occasions labeled Matthews a "laughingstock" and other names during government meetings. Matthews describes Castor as a "hypocrite."

But is Breakfastgate likely to encourage a more open working relationship among the trio? Not likely, Hoeffel said.

"Matthews and I want to run this government," he said. "Bruce wants to blow it up."