Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Latest Barnes Twist

From today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Montgomery County leaders have had a falling out with the lawyer they had hired to file a lawsuit aimed at keeping the Barnes Foundation art museum from moving to Philadelphia. ... [Thomas Ellis, chairman of the county commissioners,] said yesterday that [Mark] Schwartz, of Bryn Mawr, had quit after being told Monday that the county intended to let him go."

Apparently the dispute had to do with the fact that Schwartz was also representing the Friends of the Barnes.

But don't worry -- the show will go on:

"Ellis said the county intends to proceed. He said the work would be taken over by the [county] solicitor's office. He said the main grounds for the suit would be that Barnes Foundation leaders, in asking a county judge in 2004 to permit a move to Philadelphia, failed to inform him of financial aid the state might have offered to keep it in Lower Merion."