ROCKLAND, Maine — City councilors held a cathartic session Monday night as they bid farewell to the mayor and reflected on the group’s controversial effort to come up with a community-wide vision.
The meeting was the final one moderated by Frank Isganitis, who has served on the council for three years and was its mayor for the past year. Iganitis was defeated in a re-election bid last week.
William Jillson will be sworn into office next Monday evening, which will be followed the council’s election of a new mayor — a largely ceremonial post.
Councilors praised Isganitis and presented him with two plaques. Isganitis defended his time on the council and as mayor as he came under criticism again Monday night during the public comment session at the start of the meeting.
“People here have been confusing for so long between not getting their way and not being heard. We hear everything you have to say,” Isganitis said.
He said that the reluctance of some people to attend the public meetings and speak is not the result of a hostile environment created by the council but fear by citizens that they will become the target of criticism after watching how the councilors are treated by some residents.
Former Councilor Joseph Steinberger said that what has happened on the panel has been awful. He said the media should not be cooperating with the government as the council has suggested. He said the council also appears to be speaking with one voice, which was not good for democracy.
Isganitis said false statements have been made about him since he first ran for the council unsuccessfully in 2010. In that year, he was initially ruled the winner, but a recount resulted in him losing the seat to Larry Pritchett. Isganitis said Monday that people had claimed that he accused Pritchett of stealing ballots.
Isganitis, however, did complain publicly after the recount that neither Pritchett nor his attorney at the time, Daniel Billings, who is now a judge, were checked to see if they had any markers on them when they inspected the ballots. He also complained that Pritchett and Billings had been left unsupervised in the room at times when the ballots were being inspected before the recount.
Isganitis said despite all the good that the council has done in the past year that maybe the board moved too far too fast. He said that perhaps it was a communication problem.
In his final meeting as mayor, Isganitis said he would like to see the rebirth of a citizen group that operated in the 1990s known as Rockland Share the Pride, which focused on successes in the city and on community members who performed worthy endeavors.
“Rockland pride is still alive notwithstanding the outcome of the election,” Isganitis said.
He said the council has made tough decisions over the year that have fueled the criticism.
In speaking about Isganitis, councilors praised him for running civil meetings. Councilor Valli Geiger said there have been no incidents in which councilors have thrown hats at each other as occurred in 2011.
Pritchett commended Isganitis for serving as mayor during a difficult year. He pointed out that residents have asked city officials to hold the line on taxes, and for the past two years that has been done.
Additionally, the councilors unanimously agreed to postpone until January approval of a vision statement for Rockland that came out of an Oct. 22 meeting. That meeting became the focal point of criticism after it was publicized that among the weaknesses listed for the city were a small vocal minority, the media and unprofessional employees.
Councilors acknowledged Monday night that the process was not done in the best way. Geiger said she has been involved in a dozen SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analyses with different organizations but that this was the first that was done publicly. She said normally in such exercises all ideas are submitted anonymously, and then when considered as a group many are discarded.
“Frankly, I was dismayed and horrified and feel stupid that I didn’t see this coming,” Geiger said.
Councilors agreed that there needs to be considerable public comment before a vision statement is approved.