ROCKLAND, Maine — The city’s volunteer energy advisory panel came under criticism Monday night with two councilors calling it a “rogue committee.”
The mayor also said she would be proposing a new ordinance amendment on regulating energy plants that would replace the one that has been worked on by the energy committee and planning board. Her new proposal had not been submitted to the clerk’s office as of noon Tuesday.
The criticism of the energy committee came as the City Council again raised the issue of Councilor Larry Pritchett’s involvement in a four-town street light project that incurred costs for the city without council approval.
Pritchett strongly defended the committee in a response issued Tuesday.
“The suggestion that the energy committee is a ‘rogue committee’ is meritless and insulting to all who have served on the committee,” Pritchett said.
He pointed out that when Mayor Louise MacLellan-Ruf was campaigning for office, she argued that the council did not value the work of volunteers serving on the city’s committees.
“As mayor she seems to hold the work of city committees with whom she disagrees, like the planning board and the energy committee, in contempt,” said Pritchett, who is chairman of the energy committee.
Last month, MacLellan-Ruf convened a council meeting to determine whether there should be an ethics investigation of Pritchett over his role in securing consultants to help the planning board and energy committee develop an ordinance to regulate power plants. During that meeting, the mayor announced that the city also had incurred costs, without council approval, for a four-town effort to develop state rules to allow municipalities to acquire their own streetlights.
Councilor Valli Geiger pointed out Monday night that the city has had to spend money on consultants for a different streetlight project that it had not authorized and now had to use surplus funds for replacement of some downtown streetlights that had been approved by councilors.
“The energy committee sounds like a rogue committee to me,” Geiger said.
MacLellan-Ruf agreed, and the councilors asked that the city manager have a city staff member serve on the energy committee so that the administration will know what the panel is doing.
At last month’s meeting, councilors repeatedly told Pritchett that as a councilor or committee chairman, he did not have authority to commit the city to expenses. At the end of the meeting, councilors said they did not see a need for an ethics probe and wanted to move on from the issue.
Pritchett said the energy committee is a group of hardworking volunteers with a long history of service to the city and the community. He pointed out that its work at the public library has led to reductions in annual energy expenses of $20,000. The committee also has worked to make the community building more energy efficient, he said.
The replacement of the downtown streetlights, now leased from Central Maine Power, will save the city $60,000 annually, Pritchett said.
The council will vote June 13 on taking $165,000 from surplus to complete financing for the downtown lighting project. The city had originally planned on replacing the lights last year.
The equipment has been ordered and will take about seven weeks to arrive. The city manager said the project should be completed before the end of summer.