After making a high-profile commitment to openness and spending nine hours over three nights interviewing 18 different firms, Robinson commissioners have shelved the idea of hiring a new township engineering firm.

"We're in mid-July already, and the whole dynamic of the board might change in November," commissioner Ron Shiwarski said. "I'm in favor of continuing with the present situation until election time to see if the board sits the same."

When Remington Vernick & Beach was hired in January 2008, Republican commissioners Jerry Brouker and Stephanie Triko-Selelyo both blasted the move as pre-determined and politically motivated, and both voted against it.

Mr. Shiwarski in February called for the township to reopen the hiring process. "I figured with all the controversy, all the political rumor or fact or whatever it is, why not just open the process up and let the facts speak for themselves?" he said at the time. "We've got to get the politics out of things."

The township advertised a request for proposals, got 18 responses, and scheduled public interviews with all 18 applicants. They completed them in April, then put off further discussion in May because of the primary election.

In June, Mr. Brouker tried to launch a discussion on the selection process, and chairman Dan Tallon said that as a personnel matter, it would be discussed in a private session.

That apparently happened Monday night, with Mr. Shiwarski making a call to simply keep the process on hold.

Mr. Shiwarski said the upcoming election was a primary reason for his decision. He, Mr. Brouker and Ms. Triko-Selelyo are all up for re-election; if he were to lose and the other two were to win, the board could end up with a 3-2 Republican majority.

Hiring an engineer "is a political appointment, per se, and I'm sure if Mr. Brouker were chairman in January it would go one way and if he's not it might go another," he said.

Mr. Shiwarski said a number of factors also played into his call for a delay.

One was the issue, raised by township manager Rich Charnovich, that there would be some lost time and inefficiency in the transition. "When any new appointment comes on there's an orientation process, especially with an engineer," he said.

Another factor was the impression he was getting of RVB's work. "In the last several weeks I've had three or four people who work for the township tell me Remington Vernick is doing a very good job," he said.

And a large factor in Mr. Shiwarski's decision was the fact that no one from the public attended any of the interviews.

"I got the impression that for a lot of residents it was a very, very major issue," he said. "I was shocked that no one showed up. I don't know how big an issue it really is."

Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, said the commissioners did the right thing by doing the interviews in public.

She said the state Sunshine Law lets public agencies have private discussions about employees or prospective employees, but that engineering firms "are not employees; they are independent contractors, and any discussions about them have to be held in public."

Ms. Melewsky had issues, though, with the commissioners' actions since the interviews, including the discussion Monday night. She said any discussion concerning engineering firms should be public. A discussion of the process and timing for filling a position is not a discussion of personnel. Any decisions, even on a legitimately private issues, must be made in public, she said.

"The fact that they had this kind of discussion behind closed doors certainly raises issues about their compliance with the letter and the spirit of the law," she said.

Robinson solicitor Sam Kamin has in the past defended the "personnel" standing of discussions of engineering firms, and said Monday's discussion was indeed about personnel.

"I don't know that they made any decision," he said. "I think they went in there to figure out what to do with this list of 18 engineers, and the discussion just kind of turned around to 'Are we going to make a change, or why are we doing all this?' "

Mr. Kamin also said the materials submitted by the engineering firms included prices and other "confidential matters."

Mr. Shiwarski also noted that if the new board does decide to look at the engineering job, it will have proposals in hand already from all the major players in the region.

Mr. Shiwarski said the overwhelming response to the request was a surprise to him.

"When we put out an RFP when I first came on the board [in January 2008], I think the response was in single digits," he said.

The commissioners interviewed four firms that time before hiring RVB.

"We did it all in a two-week time frame," Mr. Shiwarski said.