NEWPORT, Maine — An undercurrent of tension that has been simmering for months boiled over this week, both at Saturday’s annual town meeting and at Wednesday night’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting.
Accusations were so unpleasant back and forth Wednesday night between the public and board members that newly elected Chairman Richard Parlee cut off public access.
Those lodging complaints included:
ä Blanche Ricker, former wife of Town Manager James Ricker, claimed she had been “harassed, intimidated and slandered” by election wardens and Town Clerk Paula Scott when she attempted to vote last Friday. She said Scott’s actions were because Scott and Town Manager Ricker have a relationship.
ä Dale Thistle, who is representing Scott in her intent to sue the town over alleged slanderous comments made by a selectman during an executive session earlier this year. At Wednesday’s meeting, Thistle interrogated Selectman Christopher Dow and said Dow “is using the local newspaper to slander a town employee.” He also called Dow a bully and said Dow was “misconstruing his authority.”
Last month, the Board of Selectmen voted to ask for Dow’s resignation but Dow refused and was re-elected last Friday.
ä Al Worden, a Newport selectman for more than 20 years until he was defeated in Friday’s elections by Roger Carr and Dow, said there is an unwarranted “organized attempt” under way within the community to “make Jim Ricker look bad.”
After more than a half-hour of such discussion, resident Kevin Hall appealed for unity.
“This town should be working together,” Hall said, speaking to the selectmen. “You are spending way too much time back and forth at each other. You guys work for us. It is time you started acting like it.”
He appealed to the board to put all personal issues aside and get down to town business.
“If you feel you can’t serve in an unbiased manner, please step down now,” Hall said.
Resident Dana Hartford also commented on the dissension, asking Thistle if he was at the meeting as an attorney when Thistle repeatedly quizzed Dow about statements Dow made in the past that questioned the integrity of the town’s bid process.
Thistle said no.
“Well it sounds like it,” Hartford said. “I object to your tone.”
The only comment board members made about the complaints was to approve a state police investigation of Blanche Ricker’s accusation that her voting rights had been violated.
In her complaint to the board, Ricker said she did not want to step inside a voting booth to fill out her ballot. “I do not like confined spaces,” she said. Once she refused, she said an election warden harassed her and Scott followed her to her vehicle. She said Scott then went back inside the polling place and told others that Ricker was impaired.
Scott disputed Ricker’s version of events, saying that she was told by others that Ricker was impaired. “It is my duty to act upon a citizen’s complaint,” Scott said. “I was told she was intoxicated. This was a polling place. I was following all of my duties under the law.”
Because the two versions of the event were so disparate, the board unanimously voted to have the Maine State Police conduct an investigation of the incident.
After the meeting, Town Manager James Ricker said that the town’s involvement in the eminent domain issue at Murray Road, which was heavily defeated at town meeting, was over. He said the only option left for residents that use the road to access their homes is for their title insurance company to file a lawsuit against the town for approving a lakeside subdivision without legal access.
Two abutting landowners, Carl Norris and Lauris Boylan, claim to own the land that the road crosses.