Bangor City Councilor Wayne Mallar must undergo legal training after the city’s ethics board found that he inappropriately used his position as a city councilor to attempt to influence a decision by a city commission.
His fellow councilors approved the penalty at their meeting Monday night. It marks the end of a nearly year-long process after questions arose about Mallar’s conduct at a Historic Preservation Commission meeting in August 2025. It also comes as the council is working to strengthen its ethics code by adding penalties for violations.
The council voted 5-2 to concur with the board’s decision that Mallar violated the code and to impose a requirement that he undergo training with the city’s legal team regarding “the appropriate use of titles and disclaimers.”
Councilors Michael Beck, Susan Deane, Joe Leonard, Angela Walker and Susan Faloon voted in favor, while Councilors Daniel Carson and Carolyn Fish voted against. Council Chair Susan Hawes was not present.
Beck suggested legal training as punishment during a workshop earlier this month.
The months-old inquiry stemmed from a dispute over resident Steven Farren’s replacement of his historic home’s slate roof with asphalt shingles. Edythe Dyer, Farren’s wife, alleged that Mallar approached commission members during a recess in their meeting and tried to convince them to reconsider hearing her husband’s case.
“By approaching the Commission during a recess without the applicant present and discussing the subject matter of the pending application, Councilor Mallar’s actions could diminish public confidence in the integrity of the City’s government,” a summary in Monday’s meeting agenda stated. Historic Preservation Commission members are appointed by the City Council, per the city’s charter.
The ethics board found in late March that Mallar’s actions violated the city’s ethics code. The City Council postponed deliberations of the board’s findings several times — resulting in a timeline that would no longer be allowed under an amendment to the city’s ethics code that was also approved at Monday’s meeting.
Under that amendment to the city’s ethics code, councilors must address an ethics board decision within 30 days and vote on whether to accept the decision and impose a punishment. The ordinance also mandates a 120-day deadline for the board to make a decision, with the option to extend.
In the future, If the council agrees that an official violated the code, it will have to vote for one of six options: not issuing a penalty, which would require a written statement explaining to the public why they are declining punishment; censure, which is a formal statement of disapproval; stripping the councilor of committee and liaison assignments; a civil fine; assigning the guilty party to complete a training; or “any other lawful action the council deems appropriate and proportionate to the nature of the violation.”
When asked if he’d like to speak Monday ahead of the vote on his penalty, Mallar said, “We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s just have the vote and get it over with.”
Mallar is the only councilor the board has found in violation of the ethics code in recent years. He’s simultaneously facing a second ethics inquiry regarding comments he made about multilingual students in Bangor’s school district.
The councilor was caught on a hot mic at an ethics board meeting in late March saying he wouldn’t support a school budget increase because of programs for multilingual students.
“They can’t speak English, read English, or write English,” Mallar said of students served by the department’s multilingual programs. “It’s not a disability. We do not have to furnish. They’re probably all illegals anyway.”
The ethics board found at the end of June that those comments violated the ethics code. Its members will approve an official decision on the matter tomorrow that will then be sent to the council.