Private debate, public criticism

SCARBOROUGH — The Dec. 7 vote that made Ron Ahlquist chairman of the Scarborough Town Council came accompanied by harsh words, not because of the vote, or the 5-2 tally, but because of talks that happened before the meeting, outside of public view.

The decision itself contained only slightly more drama than usual for a leadership vote, thanks in part to Karen D’Andrea’s competing nomination for Carol Rancourt, which died for want of a second. Both D’Andrea and Rancourt voted against Ahlquist.

With no conversation apart from nominations and the final show of hands, Ahlquist’s ascension might have passed unheralded but for thoughts expressed by both Rancourt and Councilor Richard Sullivan more than an hour into the meeting, during the open-comment period that closes each council session.

“This has been sort of a contentious council chair search this year,” said Rancourt. “Hopefully this will not harbinger that these sort of machinations will continue.”

“I also was made aware of all the shenanigans that went on behind the scenes and I wasn’t very impressed with it,” said Sullivan. “It reminded me of mudslinging politics from Washington. It’s an embarrassment.”

According to Ahlquist, the vote was all but settled before the meeting started, thanks to a series of phone calls he made the previous night to inform his peers that he wanted the job now that Plan A – the re-election of Judith Roy – was off the table.

Instead, Roy was elected vice chairwoman by the same 5-2 vote, prompting some to call the pre-meeting caucusing that set the stage for how the council will operate in 2012 inappropriate at best, and damaging to public confidence, at worst.

“Because those things are not discussed in the public arena, you just don’t know how or why those things are decided,” said Planning Board member Kerry Corthell, who has made public disclosure the centerpiece of two runs at a Town Council seat.

“Next year is going to be a very difficult budget,” said Corthell on Friday. “That makes it more critical than ever for the public to hear why certain councilors want to be chairman. Otherwise, it’s hard to evaluate all the councilors on their financial knowledge, or their knowledge of how different departments in town actually are run. 

“Frankly,” said Corthell, “I am disappointed that Judy is vice chair, based on her statement that she wouldn’t seek the chair. To me, that means you won’t seek the vice chair either.”

LEADERSHIP SNAFU

Roy was summonsed for drunk driving Sept. 17, after reportedly getting into two fender-benders and then testing a blood-alcohol content of 0.15 percent, almost twice the legal limit. In a statement made at the Oct. 5 council meeting, Roy apologized to the public, saying, “Believe me, nobody has cut me any slack.”

Despite what she called the “sometimes ruthless zeal of reporters to created the news, rather than report the news,” Roy said she would not resign her seat on the council, or her position as its chairwoman. However, Roy promised she would not seek the chair a second time.

On Nov. 2, Roy’s attorney, Matthew Nichols, entered a not-guilty plea on her behalf in Cumberland County Unified Court. A “dispositional conference” for pre-trail motions was set for Jan. 13, with jury selection tentatively scheduled to start Feb. 3.

“I supported Judy,” said Ahlquist, the day after winning the chairmanship, explaining that he encouraged Roy to again stand for the leadership role, despite her public statement.

“Judy was an incredible chairman,” he said. “She’s worked tirelessly for this town. I give her full credit for that. I think what occurred was a personal thing and, you know, I can separate the two. We all make mistakes. What happened has nothing to do with the council, but I think there were people who felt that they didn’t want Judy [to remain chairwoman] because of the OUI. I think that was a lot from people outside of the community. The majority of the council supported her.

“I absolutely advocated for her,” said Ahlquist, admitting that he’d acted the self-anointed role of whip to round of support.

Even so, Roy held firm at first.

“When Ron called, I reiterated that I had said I would not run, but he kept saying, ‘Yeah, but a majority of the council is behind you,’” said Roy on Monday.

“I did a lot of soul searching and thought, well, I didn’t seek it, they sought me,” she explained. “I thought it might work. But then I decided it really was in the best interests of the community – because that’s who we are serving – to not make myself a target for all the mudslinging.

“I just didn’t want to deal with the media jumping all over me again,” said Roy. “Psychologically, I’ve had enough of that.”

On Dec. 6, the night before the vote, Roy called Ahlquist to say she’d decided sitting at the head of the table would present “too big a distraction” from town business. That left Rancourt the only other councilor with an announced interest in holding the gavel.

“I knew Carol was running for chair,” said Ahlquist. “I certainly didn’t support her and I don’t think a majority of the other councilors did either.”

So, after hanging up with Roy, Ahlquist informed four of the remaining councilors by telephone that he’d elected to throw his hat into the ring.

“The only thing that I insisted on was that if I was going to be chair that she [Roy] would be vice chair,” said Ahlquist.

Roy said she brokered no deal. “It was up to them to make whatever nominations he wanted to make, and to vote however they wanted,” she said.

LEGAL QUESTIONS

Mal Leary, president of the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition, said the council canvassing that took place would ordinarily be illegal – a violation of Maine’s Freedom of Access Act, which states quite clearly that all “deliberations be conducted openly.” However, because the private conversations concerned an election, Leary said, they fall into “a gray area.”

“They are supposed to discuss their business in public, and they can’t do things to try and circumvent that,” Leary said last week, “but when you’re talking about an election, especially where the vote was done in public, that’s somewhat outside the range of the open-meetings law. Now you’re starting to get into another set of statutes, which cover election law.

“Still, although this was not technically a violation of the law, I would say it runs afoul of the spirit of the law,” said Leary.

The day after the vote, Rancourt said her “machinations” comment had nothing to do with the way councilors talked among themselves about the upcoming leadership vote. That, she said, has long been the “traditional method” for choosing a council chair in Scarborough.

Roy insists the election is the only time councilors debate outside of public meetings.

“In the last year, I don’t think I’ve taken two phone calls from other councilors on issues, and then only for clarification [of an issue],” she said.

But that changes between the November election, when new councilors are elected by the public, and the first meeting in December, when they decide on leadership.

“It’s what’s always worked for us,” agreed Roy. “The feeling is that if you want to run for chair, than it’s up to you to convince your peers. It’s up to each one to say, ‘I’m interested in this position and can I count on our support?’”

“This is not a public issue, it’s a council issue,” said Rancourt. “It’s always been a behind-the-scenes thing. Only once has anyone ever declared to the public at an open meeting that they were going to run.”

Instead, Rancourt’s beef is that she was left off Ahlquist’s phone list.

“I talked to people who I thought would support me,” explained Ahlquist. “I didn’t call Carol or Karen, because I didn’t think they would.”

“What I am concerned about is assuming someone’s stand before you contact them,” said Rancourt. “The work we do is all related to communication and you can never win anyone over if they are left out of the loop. We need to be open communicators. Even if a person is not on your side on an issue, the only way you ever can win anyone over is by talking to them.”

Because Rancourt never got the call, she said, she went into the Dec. 7 meeting thinking the majority choice for the chairmanship was going to be Roy. She was surprised to hear Sullivan nominate Ahlquist, she said, although not entirely disappointed.

“Even though I didn’t vote for you, I want you to know I am very proud that you stepped forward and took this position,” she told Ahlquist, late in the Dec. 7 meeting, adding that she hopes for “an open and well-communicated council” in which “not only the will of the majority be respected but the loyal minority as well.”

LASTING DECISIONS

Part of that respect for the minority may play out in subcommittee appointments, to be made at the Dec. 21 council meeting. In both South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, councilors caucus for their chairman in public, at a workshop session. In Cape Elizabeth, that session also settles committee slots by consensus. In Scarborough, however, not only is campaigning for the top job done in private, but also the chairman, once selected, wields unilateral power in making committee appointments.

Corthell said that’s particularly important when it comes to the “two most important and very powerful committees” – Ordinance and Finance.  The latter will be particularly important in 2012, said Corthell. Town Manager Tom Hall has cautioned that budget talks may start with a school budget gap crevassing as wide as $1.2 million, thanks to reduced state subsidies and the end of federal stimulus dollars given, Hall said, “with the idea the economy would have turned around by now.”

“This is going to be the most difficult year I think the council has ever faced,” agreed Ahlquist. “It’s going to be a very, very difficult year.”

Rancourt said while she supports Ahlquist despite her vote against him, she’s waiting to see “how the committees play out.”

“If you look at who’s been on Finance Committee the last two years, and who may be on it this year, there may be a pattern,” said Corthell, pointing to a trend in fiscally conservative men on the three-person committee.

Hall has said he may encourage Ahlquist to copy Cape Elizabeth in at least one respect. There, the finance committee is a committee-of-the-whole, comprising all seven councilors.

Corthell said she backs that idea, but also hopes to see a public leadership caucus next year as well.

“I would rather have it all done in public,” she said. “I would rather know whether each councilor has any interest, and how the councilors come to the decision about who they think would be the best chair.”

“They should have just gone in there and talked about it openly,” Leary said. “What’s the harm in letting the public know that they are having difficultly determining who is gong to be council chair? Sometimes open debate gets messy, but that’s democracy. It’s messy.”

Neither Sullivan nor D’Andrea returned phone messages left requesting comment.