A Winterport town councilor survived an attempt to force her to resign after a social media post she made last month raised a ruckus in the community and upset other councilors.
A motion to have Ann Ronco, a local businesswoman who is serving her third term as town councilor, resign failed 3-2 at the July 2 Winterport Town Council meeting. At the same meeting, councilors and Town Manager Mike Crooker discussed rewriting the town’s social media policy and voted to reinstate the Winterport Recreation Facebook page, which had been suspended in mid-June along with the town’s Facebook page.
“It doesn’t appear to be an issue the town has had to address before,” Crooker said after the meeting. “We are in uncharted territory.”
The Facebook matter came to a head at the beginning of June, when the council met in executive session. Councilors who were there are not repeating what was said behind closed doors, but Town Councilor Steve Clisham, Sr., evidently said something that distressed Ronco so much that she wrote a post on Facebook the next day to vent about it.
Ronco, who has served as an administrator for the town of Winterport’s official Facebook page for about five years, shared the post on the town’s page, too, making some townspeople assume that it to be the official Winterport position.
“I’ve tolerated your frivolous lawsuit against the town, but will not accept someone on the Town Council who throws out sexist comments, especially when directed at me,” Ronco wrote in her post. “Steve Clisham does not belong on the Town Council.”
Clisham was up for re-election Tuesday, June 11, not long after Ronco made her Facebook post. He lost the election — something that he does not think is entirely coincidental, although Ronco said that she had not considered the election when she made the post. He declined to repeat what had been said in executive session but doesn’t agree with Ronco’s takeaway.
“What was said, I don’t feel that it was sexual in nature,” the former town councilor said after the Tuesday meeting.
Another Winterport resident, Barry Simpson, went to Tuesday’s meeting because when he saw Ronco’s Facebook post last month, it just didn’t sit right with him.
“Some people are so quick to make an accusation of sexism to gain an advantage,” Simpson said. “It looked official. But it was actually a personal opinion.”
And although Ronco retained her seat during last week’s meeting and it seemed as if the council was on track to revamp and update its social media policy, he does not believe the town has completely resolved the controversy.
“I don’t think it’s a dead issue yet,” Simpson said.
For her part, Ronco would like the town to move on, and last month voluntarily gave up the ability to administer the town’s Facebook page. At Tuesday’s council meeting, and then again in an interview the following day, she admitted making an error when she shared the post on the town’s Facebook page. But she is not sorry that she wrote it in the first place.
“When we are sitting at the Town Council table, we need to respect each other and work together, because we work for the town,” she said Wednesday. “What we do on our own time is [our] business.”
As well, she does not believe that she is the person who is in the wrong.
“OK, fine, I’m sorry, but what about that guy that’s sitting over there?” she said at the meeting, looking at Clisham. “It was sexual in nature, sexual harassment. He’s the one that brought it up. We’re supposed to teach our children to stand up to bullies, and in my eyes, that’s what I’m doing — standing up to a bully.”
When Councilor Corey Ginn wondered if her social media response to whatever happened in executive session might be considered ‘cyber-bullying,’ Ronco rejected the notion.
“No. Sorry. He is wrong,” she said of Clisham.
Councilor Peter Rioux, who was elected to chair the council and who voted in favor of asking Ronco to resign, said at the meeting that “this whole thing could have been stemmed in executive session.”
But it was not, Ronco said. The day after the Tuesday council meeting, she said she understands that this situation is made more complicated by the fact that no one who was at the executive session feels able to share exactly what was said with the public. But she would like for the councilors who were there to take a more assertive stance.
“Nobody is saying to Mr. Clisham, why did you say those things to her?” Ronco said. “I know I can’t say them, and that makes it difficult. But there is no ‘he said, she said.’ The councilors all heard it.”
But that doesn’t seem like enough for residents such as Barry Simpson.
“I’m just all about credibility,” he said.