Employees of three blueberry processing companies recently met with a University of Maine dean and threatened to withhold funds for a new research building. They did this because they were mad that a long-time university employee was quoted in this newspaper as saying that the companies could weather a $56 million damage award levied last year after a jury found that the companies had worked together to set the prices paid to blueberry growers. They wanted the employee fired or they’d withhold the $100,000 to rebuild the Blueberry Hill Farm in Jonesboro. The dean, Bruce Wiersma, rightly, “didn’t take these guys too seriously,” he said.

Now that processors and growers have been presented with a mediator’s proposed settlement to the price fixing lawsuit, the comments of Del Emerson, long-time manager of the farm, seem to be proving true. The mediator, David Bustin of the Maine Labor Relations Board, refused yesterday to divulge the details of his recommended package, but said it includes dollar amounts that the three processing companies must pay growers and would scrap the old pricing system.

This is a very positive development in a case that had the potential to cripple a large component of the Washington County economy. That’s all the more reason for processors to change their attitudes.

The actions of the processor representatives, all members of the Maine Wild Blueberry Commission, which, interestingly, is housed at UMaine, were troubling in their presumptiveness. The three threatened to withhold commission money from the Jonesboro farm project, according to Dean Wiersma. The governor’s office is already investigating whether the commission members overstepped their bounds. They should also consider appointing different members of the commission rather than rubber-stamping individuals nominated by industry officials.

This is not the kind of behavior you would expect from representatives of companies recently found guilty of colluding to fix prices. Doesn’t showing up at a meeting together to badger a university dean suggest the processors do work together despite vigorous assertions from a company executive that the processors hate one another?

Nor is it the type of behavior you’d expect from the beneficiaries of university research and expertise. The men, from Cherryfield Foods, Wyman & Son and Allen’s Blueberry Freezer, seemed to forget that the payments they make to the university pale in comparison to what the university spends on blueberry-related research. Last year, the university received $76,054 from the blueberry commission. It spent $888,611, much of it federal funds, on the blueberry experiment station and blueberry research.

They also seemed to forget that the university spends state and federal money on research not to better individual companies but for the benefit of the people putting up the money, taxpayers. Wild blueberry research is important because of the jobs, and the accompanying income, that come from growing and processing the fruit in Maine. Such research should be directed toward improving outcomes for Maine, not for a specific sector of the blueberry industry, or even worse, for three specific companies.

Such research will be boosted by rebuilding the Jonesboro farm, run by the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station, a branch of UMaine overseen by Dean Wiersma. Many blueberry growers think that’s a wise investment but because processors dominate the blueberry commission (to be fair, they shoulder more of the tax, too), that message was lost.

If the settlement is not accepted, court proceedings in the price fixing case will continue this week. In the meantime, the governor’s office and Department of Agriculture should remind members of the blueberry commission that they are expected to represent the best interests of an entire industry. One that is facing a major hurdle that is not likely to be overcome if the processors look out only for their own interests.