BAR HARBOR, Maine — A local resident has filed a complaint against the town in court, alleging that the town improperly handled an earlier complaint he had filed with the municipality about an alleged charter violation by two members of the elected Town Council.
In court documents, Arthur Greif accuses the councilors, David Bowden and chairman Paul Paradis, of going around the town manager in March 2013 to investigate the workplace activities of another town employee, Marc Perry. Perry, who worked as Bar Harbor’s assessor at the time, resigned from the post a month later.
In a letter that Greif and his spouse, Donna Mae Karlson, sent to the council on Jan. 4, they say that the two councilors met with Angela Chamberlain, the town’s code enforcement officer, in March 2013 at Paradis’ home and ordered her to “closely monitor the photocopier use and other activity” of Marc Perry while he was at work.
Attached to their letter is a note apparently typed by Chamberlain and sent last September to Town Manager Cornell Knight. In the note, signed “Angie” at the bottom, Chamberlain describes the March 2013 conversation she had with Bowden and Paradis at Paradis’ home.
“The discussion centered around ways to prove that Marc was doing his real estate business on town time and they wanted to know if I had any ideas on how to prove that,” the note reads.
Greif is a lawyer but in the court complaint identifies himself only as a citizen of Bar Harbor, rather than as an attorney who has been hired by a client to represent the client’s interests in a legal matter. In their letter to the council, Greif and Karlson appear to be raising the issue solely as concerned local residents.
In the Jan. 4 letter, Greif and Karlson wrote that Bowden’s and Paradis’ meeting with Chamberlain was “a direct violation” of their duties under the town’s charter, which forbids councilors from making any kind of direct supervisory contact with any town employee except the manager. Councilors can only address any questions or concerns they might have about an employee’s job duties or performance by consulting with the town manager, they said.
“Neither the council nor its members shall give orders to any such employee, either publicly or privately,” Greif and Karlson wrote in the letter, quoting language from the charter.
The penalty for violation of the charter by a councilor, Greif and Karlson added, is forfeiture of office.
In a recent email to the Bangor Daily News, Perry indicated that he was a licensed Realtor before being hired as the town assessor in October 2012 by the town and that, as part of his hiring agreement, he was to conclude his real estate business but to maintain his Realtor license.
Perry said he resigned in April 2013 after being confronted by then-Town Manager Dana Reed about the allegations that he was conducting real estate business on town time. Perry, who denies the allegations, still was within the six-month probationary period of being a new hire and was given the choice by Reed to resign or be fired, so he chose to resign.
Losing his job and its $65,000 annual salary took a toll on him, according to Perry.
“I lost my house to foreclosure in May 2014. I’ve been able to build my real estate business back up, but it’s always a struggle,” Perry wrote in his email. “The evidence is there of clear wrongdoing [by Bowden and Paradis] and someone should pay for that. Period.”
The day after receiving Greif and Karlson’s letter, five of the seven members on the town council held an executive session to discuss the matter. After the session, which Bowden and Paradis did not attend, the council voted 5-0 in support of a determination that “the alleged facts and circumstances in the letter do not warrant further review or consideration by the council,” according to minutes of the meeting.
Paradis, contacted Thursday, said that even if Chamberlain’s note to Knight is taken to be accurate, it does not rise to the level of a charter violation, contrary to what Greif and Karlson allege. He declined to comment further about the alleged charter violation, or about Greif’s court complaint.
Knight also declined on Thursday to comment on Greif’s complaint.
Attempts Friday to contact Bowden were unsuccessful.
In his court complaint, Greif contends that the council did not address his and Karlson’s complaint in an appropriate manner. Greif asserts that he should have been permitted to attend the executive session in order to state his concerns, and the council should have created a written record of the reasoning behind their Jan. 5 vote so that the court would be able to review it.
The town’s attorney, Edmond Bearor of Bangor, said Friday that the town handled the complaint from Greif and Karlson appropriately. He said that, according to Chamberlain’s note to Knight, she is the one who first brought up the issue of Perry’s activities to the two councilors.
“The councilors didn’t initiate the conversation [with Chamberlain] and didn’t direct [her] to take particular action,” Bearor indicated. “All things considered, the matter simply did not warrant additional consideration by the Council.”
Greif indicated Friday in an email that how Bowden and Paradis handled the concerns raised about Perry is another example of members of the council not taking the town charter seriously. He cited a lawsuit the town lost in January 2013 after a local resident sued over changes made to the town’s land use ordinance in 2010 as one example.
Another, he added, was how the council reacted to efforts by local residents in 2014 to prevent construction of an electrical substation on Woodbury Road. In that case, he said, residents sued the town and ultimately prevailed in forcing the council to hold a vote on where electrical substations could be located.
“Most towns are governed by officials who read their charters and comply with them,” Grief indicated Friday. “This council does not. I remain stunned that the council voted to not hold a hearing on the serious allegations contained in Ms. Chamberlain’s letter.”
Greif and Bearor each said separately that they are not sure if or when oral arguments might be held or when a judge might rule on the matter.
The note Chamberlain sent to Knight last fall appears to have come to light as a result of another pending court case filed against Bar Harbor. Chamberlain wrote in the note that “now that it has come to my attention that [the meeting with Bowden and Paradis] has been mentioned in depositions, I feel like I need to tell you this occurred.”
Former Police Chief Nathan Young is suing the town in federal court, alleging that he was fired from the position in January 2014 without just cause.
Young has admitted to being an alcoholic and has acknowledged that the disease has created problems in his personal life, but says it never affected his job performance or resulted in any situation that warranted disciplinary action by the town. Young is seeking a court order that would reinstate him as police chief and award him financial and other damages.
According to documents filed in the publicly accessible online document database for U.S. District Court in Bangor, depositions of people involved in Young’s lawsuit were held at the Bar Harbor town office last July.
In addition to trying to get his job as police chief back, Young has filed paperwork at the town office to run as a candidate for town council in local elections this coming June. The town’s charter does not permit Young to be a councilor and serve as police chief at the same time, so he would have to choose which position to keep if he were to succeed both in the courtroom and at the ballot box.
The two incumbent councilors whose terms are ending this year and who must be re-elected to stay on the panel are Bowden and Paradis.
Paradis said Thursday that he has not decided whether to run for re-election, but that he has until April 29 to file his candidacy papers at the town office.
“We’re dealing with contentious stuff right now,” said Paradis, who has been on the council for 10 years. “It does wear on you.”
