HERMON – A pamphlet distributed to residents about a controversial tennis project voters rejected in January has prompted the Town Council to move toward creation of an ethics policy.

Two people who favored the proposal for a $1.3 million outdoor tennis complex asked the council for such a policy last week.

Councilors agreed to have a committee come up with ethics guidelines for council and committee members, Town Manager Clint Deschene said.

The panel will use examples from other cities and towns, such as Bangor and Presque Isle.

The request stemmed from activities surrounding a Jan. 18 special election in which voters rejected funding a portion of the tennis complex.

A day before the election, an anonymous pamphlet was mailed to residents that contained what project advocates said was “false” and “misleading” information about the project, its annual operating budget and maintenance.

During last week’s council meeting, Tim McCluskey, a recreation committee member, acknowledged that he wrote the pamphlet, and Councilor Don Pelletier said he helped pay for its distribution.

In an interview, McCluskey said former Councilor Louis “Buzzy” LaChance also helped fund the pamphlet.

In light of that, Lee Cliff and Wayne Ingalls, who are part of the Greater Hermon Community Athletic Complex Committee, urged the council to establish ethics guidelines.

“I think it’s unethical and inappropriate” for councilors or town committee members to have participated in the pamphlet project, Cliff said in an interview Tuesday.

“The councilors have voted to spend public monies, to advance a project, and then secretly funded the distribution of false information to residents that would waste the public money invested,” Cliff said.

The town had invested nearly $100,000 in buying, permitting and surveying the land for the tennis project, and had completed a fundraising feasibility study, Cliff said. The town provided all of that money, but when the committee needed $400,000 from the town to jump-start fundraising, the vote went to the residents. It was denied 235-86.

As a councilor, Pelletier said in an interview Monday, it was his duty to provide residents with information, and since some residents had expressed concern about the project he had agreed to personally fund part of the pamphlet.

Before the voting, the town had distributed a handout about the project.

“My tax dollars helped fund [Cliff’s] pamphlet, so I just wanted to get both sides out,” Pelletier said.

Some communities have implemented ethics policies for their officials, which is one way of self-policing, said Mike Starn, a spokesman for the Maine Municipal Association.

“People who serve on councils still are residents of a community and don’t give up those rights to be on the council,” Starn said. “Things that a private citizen can do, a councilor can also do, as long as it’s with their own money.”

While it appears nobody did anything legally wrong, Cliff and Ingalls drafted a letter to the council asking that McCluskey be removed from the recreation committee and Pelletier’s actions be investigated.

“It’s not unreasonable for our councilors to be honest and truthful with us,” Cliff said.

McCluskey said he did not mean for the pamphlet to be inflammatory, but he does not intend to resign from his committee.

“I have worked on a variety of things with rec and the kids for 25 years,” McCluskey said.