Millinocket recall effort fails

MILLINOCKET – The petition effort to recall two Town Council members over supposed conflicts of interest died Wednesday, just over 800 signatures short of the number needed to bring the matter to a referendum, town officials said.

Although the effort is supposed to continue until Nov. 28, Town Hall is closed today and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday, giving residents no chance to add to the number of signatures before the deadline, Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said.

As of 3 p.m., the effort to recall Councilor Matt Polstein sat at 66 signatures. Councilor Gail Fanjoy’s petition had 64 signatures, town officials said. Each gained only three signatures from the day before.

The recall petitions need about 873 signatures each to force a referendum on whether Polstein and Fanjoy should stay in office, Conlogue said.

Michelle Anderson, one of the recall effort organizers, conceded that the effort was lost and admitted to some disappointment.

“We didn’t expect that we would get 873 people, but we did think we would get more than we got. We thought for sure we would get 300 or 400,” Anderson said.

Conlogue conceded Wednesday an earlier Anderson claim that the town’s voter registration list is outdated and inflated. An accurate list probably would have required the petition effort to get significantly fewer than 873 signatures to force a referendum.

The two councilors and former Councilor Avern Danforth 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 up MAGIC funding from $25,000 to $50,000 earlier this year, but the new council voted 4-3 to rescind that vote in accordance with a referendum calling for the cutback.

Anderson and the petitioners claim that the three councilors helped 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, particularly MAGIC’s working with The Wilderness Society on a grant to help fund an enviro-friendly business park in Medway.

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 Fanjoy resigned their seats on MAGIC’s board of directors earlier this month, saying that the controversy was damaging to MAGIC and a distraction to the council.

Fanjoy and Polstein predicted the outcome, with Polstein calling the petition effort “a miserable failure,” a sentiment Conlogue echoed.

“I don’t think people believed there was enough there to justify a recall,” he said. “If you’re going to succeed in politics, you have to capture people’s imaginations. They just failed to do that.”

But Anderson said it helped force the MAGIC board resignations and raised residents’ awareness of the gray areas around ethics issues, she said.

“All of the times before this, when we talked about conflicts of interest, we were shrugged off,” Anderson said. “I think that we did send a message that the people know and they care … it’s obvious that we got it across.”

The referendum was also a key success, she said.

The effort was also part of the reason why the council asked the Maine Municipal Association for a legal opinion on conflicts of interest.

But Anderson expressed skepticism about MMA’s ability to decide fairly, given that it is paid by state municipalities such as MAGIC.

“I think it’s stacking the deck. The MMA is paid by the town to represent their interests, so it’s like they are calling in another guy on their own team,” she said.

Anderson described the recall effort as a sole resort she and the 20 other members of her group, Progress, had because state laws and the Town Charter discuss ethics violations only vaguely.

She said she is considering asking the council to reexamine the charter’s ethics provisions.