PORTLAND, Maine — The fight over waterfront zoning restrictions on the November ballot heated up Monday as opponents collected business and union backing while supporters of the proposal cried foul over the opposition’s campaign financing.
In the hour before waterfront businesses and the local longshoremen’s union held a news conference to oppose new restrictions on development blocking scenic views, supporters of the group lodged a complaint to city officials about the publisher of Old Port Magazine joining in fundraising and advocacy against the referendum.
The complaint comes as a growing number of organizations have come out against Question 2, including AARP Maine, the affordable housing nonprofit Avesta Housing, GrowSmart Maine, Homeless Voices for Justice. Those opponents have said the ordinance would limit development of affordable housing in the city as it grows more crowded and rents continue to rise.
Jess Knox, a spokesman for the No on 2 campaign, said Monday the complaint was “baseless.”
“This is an attempt to distract from the fact that we just had this huge press conference with 20 businesses endorsing a no vote,” Knox said, noting the campaign also had amassed an “unlikely coalition” of organized labor, developers, affordable housing advocates and business groups.
The group on Monday, including Pittsfield-based Cianbro, owners of DiMillo’s marina, seafood companies and Icelandic shipping company Eimskip, said it was concerned about the economic impact of the ordinance, and the direct effect on their businesses.
“In its attempt to preserve views of the working waterfront, the proposed ordinance puts the working waterfront at great risk by impeding our ability to make the investments and upgrades necessary to keep our waterfront working and viable,” the group, organized as the Portland Working Waterfront Coalition, wrote.
The group also includes boatyard owner Phineas Sprague, the previous owner of the Portland Co. Complex at 58 Fore St. The site has become a focal point of the referendum as developers CPB2 LLC plan to build a mix of residential and commercial buildings there.
“We believe in an active, vibrant, multi-use and multi-purpose working waterfront,” the Working Waterfront Coalition wrote in a joint letter. “We believe views of the working waterfront are important and adequately protected by the existing and extensive land-use laws and ordinances.”
The group wrote it plans to join the political action committee Portland’s Future to support voting no on Question 2.
Portland’s Future was one target of the barb Monday morning from supporters organized as the Save the Soul of Portland, which claims the ordinance would protect the city’s scenic views and “promote thoughtful development,” according to a prepared statement from Save the Soul of Portland spokeswoman Anne Rand.
The ordinance would require more scrutiny of developments that affect scenic viewpoints, which the proposed rule defines as a “discrete place or area from which the public may see a significant number of the scenic resources within a scenic area of regional, state or national significance.”
The referendum would create a 13-member scenic views task force to catalogue and create standards for rating the city’s scenic viewpoints, and add to the information a developer would be required to provide in submissions to the planning board. Areas determined as significant by the task force would then be subject to new zoning requirements as set out in the ordinance.
Save the Soul of Portland on Monday said it has asked city and state officials to investigate campaign finances of the Portland’s Future group and a separate ballot question committee formed by Maine Media Collective, the publisher of Maine Magazine and Old Port Magazine.
In its complaint to city officials and the Maine Ethics Commission, the group argues Maine Media Collective used its political action committee to raise money to support the publication and distribution of an issue that included stories, editorials and an advertisement advocating against Question 2.
The group cited an email from Maine Media Collective advertising account manager Karen Bowe to area businesses in describing the flow of funds from the political action committee to the magazine.
“The funds raised will increase our budget to add more pages, print more copies and expand our mailing,” Bowe allegedly stated in the Oct. 1 email.
Kevin Thomas, publisher of Old Port Magazine, said in an email Monday that his company consulted with its attorney and the Maine Ethics Commission before going to press.
“In fact, we went above and beyond by filing as a ballot question committee despite constitutional freedom of press protection afforded to publishing concerns as recognized by the Maine Ethics Commission,” Thomas said. “We will respond to any questions that are forthcoming from the Portland city clerk’s office or the Maine Ethics Commission. After we have an opportunity to review the complaint with our attorney, we intend to file a complete response.”
Save the Soul of Portland argued that the publication should have included disclosures of its political action committee funding alongside the stories.
“Readers of this magazine won’t realize that the printing, distribution and even the articles themselves were paid for by the opponents of Question 2, including organizations and corporations connected to the developers of 58 Fore St.,” Rand said in a prepared statement about the complaint.
The group also complained that Portland’s Future was wrong to give $9,000 to the magazine’s ballot committee in connection with that issue, money it used to increase its distribution and to pay for an ad featured on the back page.
Knox, with Portland’s Future, said the group properly disclosed both the ad and the expenditure to Maine Media Collective’s committee.
Political action committee disclosures are governed generally by a principle of “express advocacy” for a specific vote on an issue or for or against a candidate. Such spending by outside groups counts as independent expenditures, which require disclosures by the political action group on the ad and in campaign finance reports.
Paul Lavin, assistant director of the Maine Ethics Commission, said in an email Monday that his office had not received a hard copy of the complaint. Lavin said that Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the Maine Ethics Commission, was out of the office Monday and had not yet reviewed the complaint.