Group pursues claim of rights violations> Charge against Palmyra leads to legal squabbling

PALMYRA — For eleven months representatives of a citizens’ group in Palmyra have been trying to set up a meeting with the United States Attorney to discuss federal civil rights’ violations over the last three years.

“We can demonstrate these violations with documents, tapes and witnesses,” said Frank Robinson, spokesperson for The Group.

But John S. Gleason III, Asst. U.S. Attorney, said this week, “The federal government doesn’t deal with the operation or management of town governments.” He suggested The Group contact the state attorney general or the local district attorney.

Gleason confirmed that The Group had forwarded a series of letters and made telephone calls to his office since March 1993 regarding possible civil rights violations. “But they are using civil rights as a very broad term and their complaints do not relate. They need to consult with their own attorney.”

According to Robinson, The Group’s attorney, Geoffrey Brown of Skowhegan, has contacted Gleason, also in an attempt to set up a meeting. Gleason denied this, stating “I have never had any contact with an attorney.” Brown was ill and unable to be reached for comment.

The Group alleges that former officials have violated the civil rights of other town employees, members of The Group and others.

“These officials repeatedly violated their duties, powers and quasi-judicial functions which violates the federal civil rights act as it pertains to municipal government under the Maine Muncipal guidelines backed up by state law,” Robinson wrote to Gleason.

“The Federal Civil Rights Act makes it unlawful for a town, through its agents, or any governmental entity acting under color of law, to deprive a person of his/her federal civil rights. These include the right of free speech … and freedom of the press,” said Robinson.

Robinson illustrated with what he felt were several specific violations. He said that after he wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper in 1992 he and his family were threatened with bodily harm. He was also asked to be removed from a town meeting by former town clerk Donna Page when he requested permission to speak. Deputies escorted him from the meeting.

Two office employees, said Robinson, were so frightened after an altercation with a former employee that they wrote a letter to selectmen. “After repeated incidents of harassment,” they wrote to the board, “we are asking the board to do whatever is necessary to prevent further harassment and insure our safety.” Nothing was done, Robinson said, and the office staff resorted to carrying Mace and alerting nearby residents by telephone whenever the former employee came in to the office. That employee is now a selectman. “And now, they have to work for him,” said Robinson.

Selectman Carlton Preble was threatened by a resident over the telephone who told him, “This could get bloody.” Former selectman Dan Pettingill had the windshield smashed and the tires slashed on his car as he conducted a selectmen’s meeting in the town hall.

All of these actions, said Robinson, “amounts to our freedom of speech being denied. Every time someone in The Group speaks out, or fills out a statement for police, they are threatened and harassed.”

“The federal civil rights’ act,” he said, “is there to protect you and me from a government gone bananas. The sequence of events in Palmyra clearly shows the intent to control local government with coercion, intimidation and harassment. The tactics used to intimidate honest citizens and maintain the grip on our town government is but further proof of civil rights’ violations.”

“All we are asking is that as citizens, we have a meeting — a meeting to discuss the problems and present what evidence we have of the violations of citizens’ rights by our own local government,” he said.

“As a disabled veteran of the Vietnam era, I remember traveling a lot farther in the efforts to protect a peoples’ right to vote — free from coersion, discrimination and intimidation.”