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Originally Posted by bob jenkins
It's not only whether *you* can work impartially, it's whether others might have a reason to question it.
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Bob is on the mark.
The perception of impartiality is the real question. A genuinely professional official will always be impartial. I just started teaching at a high school in a new state...I could give a rat's patoot whether or not they win their games. But because I teach at the school I won't be assigned any of their games and that makes perfect sense to me. Fortunately I'm in a huge urban area and there are plenty of games.
And as JRut said, "If people want to find a conflict, they will." When I officiated in Hawaii and a close call would go against a visiting mainland team, it wasn't unusual to get a local favoritism/home cooking comment from the visitors. In my southern drawl, my response was always, "Hey, I'm from Tennessee," and it stopped those comments every time.