Millinocket citizens seek to oust councilors

MILLINOCKET – An attempt to institute a recall vote on three Town Council members because of their membership on a regional economic development board was put back on track Thursday.

Organizers of an effort to recall Councilors Matthew Polstein, Gail Fanjoy and Avern Danforth met with Town Manager Eugene Conlogue and swore affidavits to Town Clerk Roxanne E. Johnson at Town Hall before both sides aired their feelings during a contentious council meeting Thursday afternoon.

Under the Town Charter, Johnson now has to verify that all of the petitioners are registered town voters, Conlogue said. That should take until Monday at the latest, he said.

If at least 90 of the petitioners – or 30 per councilor – are registered, then about 20 percent of all town voters, an estimated 850 voters, must within 30 days sign another petition placing the recall question on a special election ballot, Conlogue said. Then the voters will decide whether the three councilors should be dumped.

Ken Anderson, owner of the Magic City Morning Star and the Hard Drive Cafe, and other petitioners said they hoped attorney Dean A. Beaupain of Millinocket, who represents the town on this issue, would not find anything wrong with the latest effort.

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Anderson said. An objection from Beaupain stalled the first recall effort last week.

The three councilors have been accused of a conflict of interest over their membership in the Millinocket Area Growth and Investment Council, or MAGIC, during votes to fund that organization, among other things. The council voted 4-3 to increase MAGIC funding from $25,000 to $50,000 last month.

Anderson and the petitioners claim that the three councilors form a voting block that has pushed tax breaks to Brascan, a local mill; voted for the funding raise to MAGIC; and failed to listen to residents in regard to those votes. The petitions also accuse Polstein of using his council seat to further personal negotiations with Brascan and his own personal business.

Polstein and the other councilors have denied conflicts of interest. Polstein and Danforth have accused the petitioners of attacking them because the petitioners dislike MAGIC’s work with The Wilderness Society, whose West Coast efforts to preserve some endangered species have helped lead to cutbacks in wood industries there.

“I am for the politics of inclusion,” Polstein said. He said that all sorts of groups, including the Wilderness Society, should be allowed to help shape a diversified economy for the area. He also criticized petitioners for spreading misinformation about him.

Anderson’s wife Michelle said the petitioners questioned whether The Wilderness Society should be allowed, through MAGIC, to assist in developing the regional economy. She said the town should hire a professional economic development agent or agency and avoid MAGIC.

After Mrs. Anderson spoke, Danforth, the council chairman, tried to keep residents from speaking about items not on the agenda, which the petitioners, and some councilors, took as an attempt to limit residents’ freedom.

“I am adamantly opposed to this,” Councilor John Davis said.

But under state law, the council does not have to have direct public participation in meetings, Danforth and Fanjoy said. The council’s discretion decides how much participation is warranted. Danforth asked speakers to place the subjects they wanted to discuss on the agenda before meetings began.