Police are investigating a brawl that involved Brownfield town officials outside a meeting last week.
Video circulated on social media showing people engaged in a shouting match, with others attempting to intervene and physically separate the group after an Aug. 18 meeting. One person can be seen on video after the incident saying she was punched in the face.
Select board chair Ricky Emery, who is shown in the video, declined to comment while the incident is under investigation. Major Dana Thompson of the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office confirmed his agency is investigating after being called to the fight.
Politics in the small town on the New Hampshire border was simmering long before it boiled over last week. A group of residents are campaigning aggressively to recall two select board members over allegations of overspending. It’s one of the most dramatic examples among many Maine towns facing recall efforts over discontent with public officials.
Planning board member Vincent Carbone, who was involved in Tuesday’s scuffle, is spearheading the recall campaign. The town’s main roads are lined with signs for and against the recall, which will go to a vote on Sept. 3.
In one video of the incident recorded from a nearby playground, Carbone can be seen shouting obscenities at town select board members. In another, recorded by Carbone, a woman tells him that she “just got punched in the face by somebody.”
Carbone, known in town for broadcasting meetings on Facebook, has repeatedly confronted town officials over recent months with a variety of grievances. He was removed from his planning board position earlier this year by the select board after not attending several meetings. He said he was being unlawfully barred from attending and was ultimately reinstated.
Two town employees have sought restraining orders against him in the past year. Both have been dismissed, according to filings in a Bridgton court reviewed by the Bangor Daily News. He was served with a cease-harassment notice and a warning for criminal trespassing in spring of 2025.
In both restraining order cases, town employees cited social media posts he made referencing them. Carbone maintains that he is exposing problems in town through his Facebook page, which has roughly 7,000 followers.
“They thought they were playing with somebody that I’m not,” he told a reporter this week. “I am the big bad wolf.”
A reporter attended Monday’s select board workshop. Carbone, Emery, and other officials were mostly cordial during the brief meeting.
Some residents are tired of the drama at town hall and on Facebook. Jonna Carter has lived in Brownfield for several years but has largely avoided getting involved in town politics, which she described as “different.”
After tensions turned into a physical altercation, she wrote an opinion piece for the Conway Daily Sun entitled, “The Real Housewives of Brownfield, Maine,” in which she outlined frustrations with the conflict.
“You don’t see this stuff in the schoolyard,” she told a reporter.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.