They have been branded incompetent, politically biased and traitorous to their own code. Critics say they ignore bad behavior by their friends while conducting witch hunts against their enemies.

And now, the Carroll County commissioners - who have threatened to fire them if they don't resign - appear poised to make a decision on their fate.

But the three members of the Carroll ethics commission - James F.W. Talley, Suzanne Primoff and John Harner - say they have never pursued anything but the truth. And they promise to do all they can to defend their reputations.

"It hurts to have our reputations trashed like this with all we've tried to do for the county," Talley said in an interview Thursday. "I've been on this stuff for almost six years, and never, never have we had this type of controversy."

Talley, 62, is a Methodist minister who lives in Woodbine and preaches in Upperco. Primoff, 52, is a Woodbine businesswoman who helps plan social events at the White House and is married to Ed Primoff, a property-rights advocate who ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner in the fall. Harner, 79, is a school bus driver and beef cattle farmer from Taneytown.

The three have been in the spotlight since Dec. 3, when newly seated county Commissioners Dean L. Minnich and Perry L. Jones Jr. approved a letter from the county attorney suspending Talley, Primoff and Harner and asking them to quit. Minnich and Jones said the ethics board's reputation was irreparably damaged by their "misuse of office" and the taint of political bias.

Talley responded that he and his colleagues would not resign, and that they resented the smear on their reputations. He further said that Jones and Minnich had called for the resignations to thwart an investigation of alleged ethics violations by Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge.

The boards have exchanged accusatory letters in the weeks since, and last week they met face to face for the first time.

But neither side has budged. And the showdown could heat up even more this week.

In demanding the resignation of the panel members, the commissioners said they would fire them if they did not comply. The commissioners, who are considering disbanding the panel and having a single ethics officer, said they are likely to take up the board's future this week. They are scheduled to meet with the county attorney Tuesday to weigh their legal options.

Ethics panel members are willing to go to court to defend their right to continue investigating Gouge, Talley has said.

Board's record at issue

The stand-off boils down to a drastic difference of opinions on how to interpret the ethics board's record.

In the five years that the current members have served together, the ethics panel has conducted a handful of major investigations. In the first, they found former county planning commission member Grant Dannelly guilty of voting for a zoning change that affected property he owned. In the second, they found then-Commissioner Donald I. Dell innocent of any wrongdoing in helping negotiate the county's purchase of the Lease brothers' property outside of Union Bridge for more than six times its appraised value.

The third investigation - still alive after a year - has focused on various charges against Gouge, who also is under criminal investigation by the state prosecutor's office.

The ethics panel's investigation of Gouge began after contractor Charles Stambaugh complained to the ethics board about an argument he had with Jill Gebhart, the commissioner's daughter, in December 2001. Stambaugh accused Gebhart of using her mother's name to try to intimidate him.

The investigation did not result in charges related to the dispute between Stambaugh and Gebhart, but it unearthed other potential violations, the ethics panel said in a letter dated June 24. Those alleged violations included the possibility that Gouge had influenced Stambaugh to reduce the fee for his work at Gebhart's business in Hampstead by $1,000, according to the letter. The panel members have since said that Gouge improperly ordered an assistant county attorney to seize confidential ethics board files.

Gouge has called the investigation a groundless political attack.

Talley estimated that the ethics commission, if allowed to continue working, could finish the Gouge investigation in "about two good days."

Other complaints

The formal investigations aren't the only subjects of critics' complaints against the ethics board.

Planning commission member Melvin Baile Jr. said at a meeting last week that the ethics commission conducted a "witch hunt" against him a few years ago based on vague claims about his business interests throughout the county. Baile said that fighting the investigation cost him more than $400, but that it "went away" as soon as he hired former state Del. Joseph M. Getty as his attorney.

Many critics also note that the ethics commission did not investigate Ed Primoff last year, when he tried to develop his property under a law he had helped craft as a member of an appointed county committee.

Critics look at these cases and say the ethics board was harder on Dannelly, Gouge and Baile - all political opponents of Ed Primoff - than it was on Dell, a fellow conservative and one of three commissioners who appointed Talley, Primoff and Harner.

"Between the ethics commission muckraking against planning commission members and their refusal to investigate an obviously questionable use of influence by Ed Primoff ... this ethics board has shown its willingness to be used as political puppets," said Neil Ridgely, a former candidate for county commissioner from Finksburg and a close observer of the panel. "This group has ruined the public's trust in it ... and made a mockery of ethics."

'Disingenuous at best'

The ethics board is "disingenuous at best" said Eldersburg resident Angela Lee, who filed the complaint against Dell after the county purchased the Lease property. Lee said the ethics board never provided evidence in its public report that it had done a complete investigation of the situation.

Lee also filed a complaint last year asking how Suzanne Primoff could investigate Gouge while her husband was running against the incumbent in the county's Republican primary. The ethics commission responded in a letter dated Aug. 21 that it had wrapped up the part of the investigation Lee had asked about, and that Primoff had recused herself from discussions regarding the county commissioners while her husband was a candidate.

Lee said she can't understand the response, given subsequent statements by Talley that the ethics board never closed its overall investigation of Gouge.

The ethics board members argue that all of their investigations have responded to direct complaints. The facts showed Dannelly guilty and Dell not guilty of violating the county ethics code, Talley said. The Gouge investigation keeps moving forward because the board continues to unearth new allegations, he said.

No one asked the board to investigate Ed Primoff, Talley said, adding that the ethics code wouldn't have applied to a member of a temporary committee.

"I don't think any of us ever thought we were doing anything other than taking written complaints and responding to them in terms of the ordinance," Talley said.

As for Baile's complaint, Talley said, the board never investigated the planning commission member but asked him to provide more information about his business interests than he had on the financial disclosure form he signed when he was appointed. Once Baile and Getty provided that information, the ethics board was satisfied, Talley said.

Talley and Primoff, the main targets of criticism about the ethics board, said they expected difficult situations when they agreed to serve.

Said Primoff, who was appointed in 1998, a year after Talley, "Whenever you do an investigation, some people are mad that you're doing it at all and some are mad because they don't think you're doing enough."

'Sense of justice'

Both said the recent contention surrounding the Gouge investigation has been more intense than they expected

Primoff, who runs a commercial lending business with her husband, said she has let most of the criticism roll off her back.

Talley admits to feeling wounded. He is the son of a Methodist minister who protested government corruption in his Midwestern town, and raised his family so strictly that he wouldn't allow them to read the Sunday paper, lest it obscure the true meaning of the seventh day. Talley, who earned a law degree and has run a real estate business, said ethics always have been a passion for him.

"I have an intense sense of justice. ... That's part of why being belittled about my own ethics hurts me a bit," he said.

Talley say he'll fight for his board's right to investigate Gouge, even if the struggle goes long past March 1, when his second and last term ends. He has said he could see the dispute ending up in court.

"I'm willing to take a little personal humiliation to get us through this," he said.