Brewer council candidate claims harassment

BREWER – A candidate for the Brewer City Council claims she has been harassed over the telephone and by mail and has been accosted as she drove her car. The alleged instigators tell Ailine H. Simon, 74, to withdraw from the race, Simon said in an interview and in a letter to the Bangor Daily News.

Simon reported her concerns to Brewer police this week and her complaints are being investigated, according to Lt. Perry Antone.

However, there is little solid evidence to go on, Antone said.

“We’re looking at anything we can to help corroborate or identify people who may be involved,” Antone said.

“She filed a complaint with us and we’re looking into what little information we have. At this point, without identifying any people that may be involved with this conduct … it’s hard to say where this is going to end up,” Antone said.

Though frightened by the alleged incidents, Simon said the activity will not deter her from running for City Council. Elections are in five days.

Simon traces the start of the harassment to late September. Three days after council candidates Michael Celli and Larry Doughty were interviewed on television, an interview in which Doughty referred to her as an “anti-smut'” candidate, Simon said she received an unsigned, anonymous letter “with a threat for me not to proceed any further but drop out of the council race.”

Telephone calls started with “disguised, muffled voices and opprobrious language saying I would be sorry if I did not drop out of the campaign,” Simon said.

Simon said she kept “low-key” about the incidents at first. Things came to a head last Sunday, Oct. 26, according to Simon. While driving along the Wiswell Road and the Green Point Road, Simon said, the driver of a black pickup truck behind her began sounding his horn. The male driver passed her when she turned onto Elm Street, and allegedly hollered out the passenger-side window which was open, telling her to “quit the council.”

She termed the actions done by “underhanded individuals.” She said it is done in a “cowardly and contemptible manner or instigated by an insecure person or persons who do not want any competition in the council election.”

“This is only a city election. What is the fear?” Simon asked.

Simon’s candidacy is supported by a group of people on South Main Street who are upset with the city’s decision to allow Pandora’s Boxxx, an adult video store, to remain in the community. The city settled a lawsuit claiming First Amendment violations by the owner of Pandora’s Boxxx upon the advice of the city attorney.

Reacting to Simon’s complaints, Doughty said he alternately feels “sympathy for her and then I don’t.”

By associating with the “anti-porn” group in South Brewer, “she has opened herself up to such things as phone calls and letters, etcetera,” Doughty said. In his 15 years on the council he has “received nasty letters and nasty late-hour phone calls. I accept it as part of being a public servant,” he said.

Doughty said Simon was “desperate for a campaign issue” or “looking for a little sympathy.

“The old saying is if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen,” he said.

Celli said if Simon’s complaints “are true, then whoever is doing that doesn’t have a life.” He said he never mentioned Simon in the television interview.

“I don’t campaign against my opponents. I campaign on my record,” Celli said.