BAR HARBOR, Maine — The latest twist in Bar Harbor’s ongoing conflict over cruise ships has triggered an ethics investigation.
Town councilors voted 7-0 last week to have Town Manager Cornell Knight gather documentation on whether warrant subcommittee members “actively worked behind the scenes to influence the positions taken” by the committee, according to Councilor Matthew Hochman’s motion.
At issue is a set of emails the town acquired as part of preparing for a pending zoning lawsuit. Council Vice Chairman Gary Friedmann said the emails indicate that four warrant subcommittee members had secretly been fundraising and organizing opposition to a cruise ship pier at a former ferry terminal that the town is poised to buy in June.
“What disturbs the council is that members of that subcommittee, and others in the town, have accused the town of a lack of transparency,” Friedmann said Thursday. “If it is true that they have been deliberating outside of the light of day, then that would seem to suggest that there’s maybe a lack of transparency on their part.”
Traffic flow is the biggest issue the town faces as it contends with record crowds at Acadia National Park — 3.5 million visits in 2017 — and a record 166 cruise ship visits in 2017. About 180 ship visits are expected once the season starts in April.
The council’s goal, Friedmann reiterated, is to give voters the best options for deciding whether to buy the terminal when they vote at the annual town meeting in June on whether to bond the $3.5 million purchase.
The council hopes the terminal can help alleviate traffic problems, but only town meeting voters can decide what the town shall do, Friedmann said.
Whether the warrant committee member actions represent a conflict of interest under state law is doubtful. Knight said he wasn’t aware of any authority either board might have over the other, and according to the town charter, the council and committee are separate elected bodies.
The committee is charged with helping the town monitor its finances and advising the council on an annual budget prior to the annual town meeting.
Attorney AJ Greif, whose wife, Donna Karlson, is a committee member identified in the emails and a leader in the opposition to cruise ship traffic increases, said that the committee members were exercising their free speech rights.
He doubted that they broke any laws and questioned whether the council and Knight had any right to investigate the committee.
“Legislative bodies don’t investigate each other in America,” Greif said Thursday.
The council, meanwhile, allegedly ignored the town’s ethics code in publicly discussing the potential ethics violations before the Feb. 6 meeting without the possible violators being present, Greif said.
But the committee member emails might be a violation of the Maine Freedom of Access Act, Friedmann said, as the emails could constitute a quorum of a subcommittee.
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