A Brownfield Select Board member and her husband helped initiate a fight that turned physical at a board meeting in August, an investigator found.
Select Board member Tracie Peek-Antolin violated town policies when she instigated an altercation with Anna Maxwell, the town’s recreation director, according to the report conducted by a labor lawyer with the firm Bernstein Shur.
The 12-page report details how a “long-standing schism” between supporters of Maxwell and those of her fired predecessor exploded. The report states that Peek-Antolin is friends with the dismissed recreation director.
It marked the first official account of the fight, which drew a police investigation and capped months of division in the town of 1,600 on the New Hampshire border. The brawl also put the focus on a board member who was not a target of a recall push that voters rejected by large margins in September.
The report, written by employment lawyer Matthew Tarasevich, called Peek-Antolin’s husband, the similarly named Tracy Antolin, a “key aggressor.” He allegedly pushed and punched Maxwell while Peek-Antolin herself “stood to the side and did not intervene.”
Neither Antolin nor Peek-Antolin could be reached for comment. Select Board Chair Ricky Emery did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The parking-lot brawl was caught on video from an adjacent playground, which officials were informally inspecting. The footage shows Antolin in a physical altercation while two Select Board members try to break up the fight. Police were called to the scene, which remained tense. Antolin and Peek-Antolin left before any law enforcement arrived, the report said.
Tarasevich found some of Peek-Antolin’s comments to Maxwell, many of which are redacted from the version of the report released by town officials, constituted harassment under town policy. The lawyer also noted that policy forbids officials from engaging in conduct that reflects “unfavorably” on the town.
Peek-Antolin violated this “for obvious reasons,” he concluded, saying her conduct “was completely unacceptable as an elected official.”
Much of the context for the fight was redacted from the version of the report that was released to the public. But the broader feud over the position of recreation director has divided the town before. It contributed to the attempt to recall the other two Select Board members, Emery and Selectman Brian Fortier, which failed last month.
The report stated that “possible criminal conduct” occurred during the fight, but it made no findings regarding alleged criminality.
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.