HAMPDEN, Maine — The day after the Town Council voted 6-1 that it had no confidence in her ability to do the job, Mayor Carol Duprey stated emphatically that she will finish out her one-year term at that body’s helm.
The vote of no confidence Monday night apparently was triggered by negative campaign robocalls targeting two council members placed on Sept. 30 by a political action committee that Duprey and her husband formed in August.
“I absolutely will not resign because I did nothing wrong,” Duprey wrote in an email responding to a request for comment from the Bangor Daily News on Tuesday. “As a private citizen, not as a councilor or the mayor, I notified citizens of the voting records of current councilors that have been working against me all year in my efforts to rein in Hampden’s out-of-control spending.
“The town manager will say there is nowhere left to cut and that the state and [RSU 22] are to blame, but I have identified hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings and I have several councilors standing in the way of my efforts to hold the line on taxes,” she said. “We have elderly citizens having to choose between buying medicine and paying their property taxes. I am their voice. I am hoping the voters agree with me on November 4.”
Town Manager Susan Lessard said Tuesday that there is nothing in the town’s ethics code or town charter preventing Duprey from staying on.
As it stands, Hampden has no mechanism for removing a mayor nor does it have a recall provision, Lessard said.
It does have a means for the council to remove a member but only if that elected official lacks the qualifications needed to serve, engages in activities prohibited by the town charter, is convicted of a crime or offense during his or her term that is reasonably related to that official’s ability to serve, or racks up an excessive number of meeting absences.
On Tuesday, Duprey said the no-confidence vote and subsequent request to step down were politically motivated.
“You would think politicians would have a backbone but obviously in local politics that is not the case,” she wrote.
“Some councilors got their feelings hurt and they are publicly humiliating me in a twisted effort to hold onto their power,” Duprey said. “They are using the power of their office to try to squash my civil right to free speech and to put the public on notice that you better not try to question their votes.
“This no confidence vote was not on my ability to do the job as chair, it was based solely on me holding councilors accountable for their votes. Period,” she said.
The Town Council elects its mayors and deputy mayors at the first meeting in January of each year, according to the town charter. The council canceled its first November meeting because it falls on the eve of Election Day, so only three regular meetings are scheduled from now until the end of this year.
Asked Tuesday how she would handle upcoming meetings, given her colleagues’ unanimous vote of no confidence, Duprey wrote the following:
“I will more than likely appoint someone to chair the next three meetings so the focus can come off of me and I can get back to doing the business I was elected to do,” she said.
“I will continue to dig deeper into the town finances and will continue to identify the savings needed to give Hampden citizens a well-deserved tax break after two years of tax increases,” Duprey said, adding, “With a change of the members of the council, that can become a reality.”
Robocalls were made to residents of voting districts represented by Councilors Ivan McPike and Jean Lawlis, both of whom are seeking re-election on Nov. 4. The calls reminded residents that property taxes were due the next day and then went on to blame McPike and Lawlis for a 10 percent increase in property tax rates over the past two years.
The calls also caused some chaos on an already busy day at the town office, where staff fielded phone calls and visits from residents, some confused and others angry, who already had paid their taxes.
At the request of Councilor Thomas Brann, town attorney Thomas Russell was asked to determine if the mayor’s robocalls constituted a violation of the town’s code of ethics.
Though Russell ruled that the robocalls did not constitute an ethics breach because Duprey was acting as a private citizen — and not an elected official — when she made them, Brann requested that the council seek Duprey’s resignation from the mayorship.
“Request denied,” was Duprey’s response.