This post was originally published by The Belfast, Maine Conversation. To receive regular coverage from the Belfast, Maine Conversation, sign up for a free subscription here.
There have been ongoing attempts to dismiss this publication as something other than journalism whenever the reporting becomes uncomfortable.
The Midcoast Villager covered the Harkness tenancy story too, and linked to this publication. The Villager didn’t treat it as gossip or drama. It did what newspapers do when another outlet breaks a legitimate story: it followed it.
There’s now a pattern. The Bangor Daily News has also republished articles from this publication, so any suggestion that this isn’t journalism has two problems: it follows a long-established journalistic style that predates modern newspaper conventions (and never disappeared), and established news organizations are associating with it.
Before getting into Councilor Neal Harkness’s response to reporting that he rents his home from City Manager Erin Herbig’s parents, it’s worth explaining that I didn’t know about this relationship until recently. I had been covering the Belfast City Council for two years. Someone tipped me off, and I started checking records.
I checked election records, nomination papers, then property records. I established the family relationship to City Manager Erin Herbig, searched Council records for a disclosure or abstention, checked Maine law, checked Belfast’s own ethics policy and only then published.
Councilor Dan Miller mocked the reporting and minimized the relationship. Harkness had said nothing publicly at that point, so Miller was effectively making the defense for him: this was “drama,” the relationship was insignificant, move along. I specifically suggested asking the Maine Municipal Association (MMA) for advice. Miller had been at MMA training for councilors only a few days before the Harkness article came out — but appeared to bring none of that seriousness about ethics compliance back with him.
Mockery would have been a familiar response from Harkness himself. Silence would have been even more familiar. This publication has been trying to get him to answer questions for a couple of years. My outbox contains many emails that went unanswered, some going back to 2017. In more than a decade of being an engaged citizen, I’ve never received a response to an email from him or his colleague Councilor Mary Mortier. That’s not hyperbole — not one single response from either of them, ever.
This time, Harkness spoke to someone else. He offered a smorgasbord of explanations seemingly aimed at explaining the issue away. And then, among all of that, he said this:
“I can understand why someone might perceive a conflict of interest, but it did not occur to me at the time.”
Harkness confirmed that he rents from Leslie and Cindy Herbig and that the relationship began while he was serving on the Council, and Erin Herbig was city manager. He gave a date, May 2021. He acknowledged that someone could perceive the relationship as a conflict of interest. And when given the opportunity to identify a disclosure, Harkness told the Villager: “I don’t recall making any specific ‘disclosure’ of the arrangement.”
He didn’t say he received advice from the City Attorney before renting the house, nor did he mention that he asked the MMA whether becoming the city manager’s parents’ tenant was appropriate. He didn’t call the law invalid.
Harkness was first elected in 2014. He voted in favor of Herbig’s hiring. She started in March 2020. On February 16, 2021, Harkness and the rest of the Council formally adopted Belfast’s Core Value Statement. It applies to elected officials and directs them to:
“Avoid interest or activity that may be in conflict with or lends to a perception of being in conflict with official City responsibilities.”
Sometime after Herbig was hired, Harkness needed housing that would allow him to remain in Ward 2. He learned a house owned by the city manager’s parents was available, and he rented it. Per his stated date, he did this three months after adopting Belfast’s ethics statement.
Harkness told the Villager that he pays market-rate rent. My October 2 article explicitly said: “I do not know Harkness’s rent, and I’m not claiming he receives a discount.”
I explained why it didn’t matter whether he paid market rent, because the rent doesn’t change who Harkness’s landlords are. It doesn’t negate that finding affordable housing in Ward 2 is a tall order for anyone.
Consider a thought exercise to show why market rent is irrelevant to the ethics issue. Imagine if Herbig’s family owned numerous rentals in town, rentals were hard to come by, and all five councilors lived in them at market rents. Would that be a problem? If you don’t think so, explain why in the comments.
If one councilor is “no big deal,” then what changed between one and five councilors? How does councilor number three or four’s identical rental arrangement become a problem when councilor number one’s wasn’t?
“The fact that we rent from the Herbigs is no secret,” he told the Villager. “My address can be found on the city website, as can the ownership of the property.”
His residential address is not on Belfast’s Mayor and City Council page, or anywhere on the website that I could find. The City publishes his name, ward, term expiration, telephone number and City email address.
Councilor addresses are not on the City website
Maybe Harkness has some other particular City webpage in mind. He didn’t provide a link. At the candidates forum, Harkness got a couple straightforward facts wrong, like claiming the City wasn’t spending money on a second city hall, even though $2 million has already been spent or appropriated. That one was a secret — I had to demand documents the public had never seen, to figure it out.
Let’s follow Harkness’s argument through. A member of the public would need to locate his correct residential address somewhere. Search the property records. Identify Leslie and Cindy Herbig as the owners. Know or independently establish that they’re Erin Herbig’s parents. And determine that Harkness was actually renting the house from them.
Harkness appeared on the fall 2022 ballot as a Pearl Street resident. If Harkness was already renting on Miller Street in late 2022, more than a year after he claims his tenancy began, why did his election paperwork not identify Miller Street as his residence?
If the public could find out by looking up his address and then checking property ownership, which address were Belfast voters supposed to look up in 2022?
More than 4,200 Belfast voters cast municipal ballots in 2024. Quite a few of them told me after this story ran that they had no idea Harkness rented from the city manager’s parents. So how exactly were all of those people supposed to find out about something he never disclosed? By gossip?
An “insiders knew” defense has its own ethical problem. Belfast has a City Attorney on a $60,000-per-year retainer and belongs to MMA.
If this arrangement was no secret among the people involved, did it seriously never occur to any of them — Herbig, another councilor, any staff at City Hall or any supporter who thinks this is “no big deal” — to seek legal advice before a sitting councilor made the city manager’s immediate family his landlords?
Harkness also told the Villager that he has known the Herbigs “since before my time on the council.”
That doesn’t explain how he learned about this specific rental, how the arrangement came together, or even whether that prior acquaintance amounted to anything more than having met them a few times.
Erin Herbig was well situated to clarify that. Harkness made his prior familiarity with her parents part of his explanation. She could say whether she had anything to do with the rental and whether she knew about it when it began. She usually has an explanation for everything.
The Villager asked her for comment. She didn’t respond.
Harkness also told the Villager: “I would think that any counselor [sic] who has a mortgage or does business with a local bank would have a similar conflict.”
Having a mortgage or checking account at Camden National Bank creates “a similar conflict”?
Simon Griffiths is the president of Camden National Bank. A Belfast city councilor doesn’t appoint Simon, set Simon’s compensation, supervise Simon or possess governmental authority to suspend or remove Simon.
Neal does have those powers over the city manager.
On March 1, 2022, Harkness joined a unanimous Council vote approving Herbig’s three-year employment contract. That contract automatically renewed in 2025 without another affirmative Council vote. Harkness was already renting from her parents when he exercised one of the clearest powers the Council has over her employment.
Harkness made a campaign argument that experienced councilors provide an independent check on staff. In reviewing Council records, I still have not found a single administrative proposal Harkness voted against. Readers haven’t pointed to any. He didn’t offer one in his response either.
This publication has reported on numerous instances of Belfast’s Charter, laws, rules and regulations being ignored by Harkness, Herbig and the entire Council. The level of nonchalance with how legal compliance issues are handled by this Council and administration in part led to endorsements for two challengers: