New petition seeks LNG negotiating team

PERRY – A group of residents dissatisfied with a recent vote by the selectmen is taking its case to the public.

A special town meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 1, at the Perry Elementary School.

Earlier this month, Jeanne Guisinger petitioned the town to form a committee to participate in discussions and negotiations with Quoddy Bay LNG. The petition requested the question to form a committee be placed before voters at a special town meeting.

On Monday selectmen voted 2-1 against Guisinger’s petition. On Wednesday, Guisinger, her husband, Gary, and John Cook issued a press release saying that a new petition had been circulated to override the decision by selectmen on Monday.

For the past few months, Chairman David Turner and the town’s attorney have been negotiating with the Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LNG. The company hopes to build a liquefied natural gas facility in neighboring Pleasant Point, but the company’s tank farms would be in Perry.

For months now, opponents of LNG have maintained that their voice has not been heard at the negotiating table. The town hopes to strike a deal with the company that would provide economic relief for its fire department as well as for law enforcement among other things. Turner has made it clear he is pro-LNG.

But Turner said Wednesday that Guisinger has been part of the discussions.

“Jeanne Guisinger has access to all the information I have,” Turner said. “She likes to say that I single-handedly appointed myself the sole negotiator for the town. Yet she has been present at all but one meeting and has had access to every piece of information. The fact is, she knows the full details of the Financial Framework Agreement being presented to Quoddy Bay. I think she is afraid that when Perry residents hear the deal, they will support it. She is doing everything within her power and even things not in her power to stop this.”

Guisinger did not return a telephone call Wednesday.

The petitioners want an open town meeting to allow voters to decide if a negotiating committee should be formed to meet with Quoddy Bay.

The question suggests that the committee be made up of people from the planning board, the fire chief, fishermen and members of the community, among others.

Turner announced Monday that the petition Guisinger had submitted had been certified and moved to put it on the ballot and not call a special town meeting.

According to a news report on WQDY-FM, Guisinger countered with her own motion which asked that the question be placed before voters at an open town meeting. Selectman Dick Adams voted with Turner; Guisinger’s motion died for lack of a second.

“By the selectmen’s refusal to call a special open town meeting to address the request of the petition in a timely manner, they have created a matter of unreasonable refusal,” the press release said. “Negotiations with the developer are ongoing and to delay the town’s decision on a negotiating committee is unreasonable.”

The second petition calls for a special town meeting on Feb. 1. It was notarized and has been posted in town. The petition again asks that a special negotiating committee be created.

If the selectmen do not call for a special meeting, a notary public can, according to the press release.

“As it stands now, David [Turner] has been doing it all,” said Cook on Wednesday. He helped circulate the petition and put his name on the press release. Cook is anti-LNG. “So we felt there needed to be broader representation at the bargaining table.”

Cook explained that the community has never had the opportunity to state what it would like to see in the deal the town plans to strike with the company. “This is not the way this should go. We’ve never had any input from the community determining what our goals are,” he said. “There’s been no open review of the priorities or what it is we should even be looking for. As it is, David and a lawyer from Bangor are working out something with Quoddy Bay and nobody knows about it.”

Cook said it was not necessary for all three selectmen to be at that special meeting. “It’s still a legal town meeting, and as long as we conduct the proceeding in a legal manner, it has the full force of law and they ignore it at their own peril,” he said.

The petitioner said he would like to see as many Perry residents at the meeting as possible. “I think it is a good way when a community like Perry is challenged to give citizens an opportunity to reassert themselves and take back their town when it’s being taken down the road like this. It’s a critical part of the democratic process.”

Turner said that the Maine Municipal Association had advised him that the selectmen’s decision was legal. He said that even though the selectmen decided to put the question before voters in the form of a ballot question there would have been a public hearing beforehand so voters could be informed of the ballot question. Turner said he believes the Feb. 1 meeting was illegal. “This puts the town going into an illegal, invalid meeting,” he said.

MMA did not return a telephone call.