PORTLAND – The Passamaquoddy Tribe is subject to the state’s Freedom of Access Law, and tribal council meetings about a proposed liquefied natural gas facility in Washington County should be open to the public, attorneys for two Maine newspapers argued Monday in Cumberland County Superior Court.

An attorney for the tribe argued that the negotiations are internal tribal matters and not subject to Maine’s sunshine law.

Maine Superior Court Justice Thomas Humphrey took the matter under advisement after a three-hour, jury-waived trial that included testimony from reporters who have been denied access to records and meetings.

Humphrey said he would accept briefs from attorneys next month. A decision is not expected before the end of the year.

The Bangor Daily News and The Quoddy Tides sued the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation in September in Washington County Superior Court while Humphrey was presiding in Machias. Humphrey’s office is in Portland, so the trial is being held there.

The siting of LNG facilities in coastal Washington County has become a divisive issue in the last 18 months. Passamaquoddy leaders announced earlier this year that they were partnering with Quoddy Bay LLC, a development group out of Oklahoma, to put an LNG terminal on tribal land at Split Rock with companion storage tanks in either Robbinston or Perry. The tanks would be connected to the terminal by an underground pipe.

The developer has projected that the LNG facility will provide more than $6 million a year to the tribe and will bring hundreds of construction jobs to the area. There would be about 80 “high-paying permanent jobs” starting in 2009 or when the facility has been targeted for completion.

The proposal has split tribal members, friends and neighbors. Some seek the jobs and money such a development would bring; others believe the heavy industry would harm the quality of life around Passamaquoddy Bay.

Diana Graettinger, the BDN reporter based in Calais, and Edward French, editor of The Quoddy Tides, separately filed with the tribe requests for records, correspondence and lease agreements and other documents relating to the tribe’s dealings with Quoddy Bay LLC.

The tribe refused, and the lawsuit was filed.

Bernard J. Kubetz of Bangor, the BDN’s attorney, told the court Monday that in May 2001 the Maine Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled that, under the 1980 Indian Claims Settlement Act, the relationship of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes to the state is akin to that of municipalities except when discussing exclusively tribal matters.

The newspapers are asking the judge to order the tribe:

. To produce the requested records immediately.

. To open to the public future meetings about the possible development of an LNG facility.

. To open to the public all future meetings that do not deal solely with internal tribal affairs.

. To pay the papers’ costs and attorneys’ fees.

In 2001, the state supreme court found that minutes, agendas or notes regarding tribal council meetings were exempt from the access law, but other documents were not.

“It is not until the decisions made in the course of tribal governance find their way to actions and interactions with others outside of the tribes that the tribes will ordinarily be deemed to have moved outside of internal tribal matters,” now Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley wrote in 2001 for the court.

“When the tribes, in their municipal capacities,” the justice continued, “act or interact with persons or entities other than their tribal membership, such as the state or federal government, the tribes may be engaged in matters that are not ‘internal tribal matters’ … [or] have a direct effect upon members of the public outside the borders of tribal lands … ”

Kubetz said Monday that because state and federal agencies must be involved in the siting and licensing of an LNG facility and because the plan has generated public interest statewide, the tribes’ discussions about the proposed project must be open to the public and the press.

Craig Francis of Pleasant Point, attorney for the reservation, told the court that until state and federal agencies begin the licensing process, negotiations over a lease of tribal land is an internal matter. He also said that both reporters have written stories about meetings quoting tribal members who attended meetings about the project.

“Their access to information has not been denied,” he told Humphrey.

Outside the courtroom, Francis said that the tribe would await the judge’s decision.

Kubetz said after the trial that he expected the justice’s decision to be appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and for Maine’s Indian tribes to continue to claim they are sovereign nations that do not function as municipalities.

Outside the courtroom Kubetz said, “My guess is that this issue of their sovereignty and their right to privacy is sufficiently important to the Indian tribes in Maine that the next time this issue comes up, or a similar issue comes up, they will probably try to find a way to structure their decision-making process, to structure their meetings, to maximize the probability that they can take refuge in the exemption to the Freedom of Information Law or find a way to become totally exempt from the law for purposes of that case.”

Asked whether Humphrey’s decision might apply to other tribes or in other cases, Kubetz said, “It’s going to depend on how narrowly or broadly the decision is written.”