Camden contends with anonymous opposition to Monday’s special town meeting, issues rebuke
CAMDEN — If Monday’s special town meeting to be held in the parking lot of the Camden Snow Bowl isn’t odd enough — with votes being cast from individual vehicles — a flyer with anonymous origins and a letter from a Portland attorney, who declined to identify his client, earned a strong response from Camden Town Manager Audra Caler.
The flyer (see image) was sent to Camden mailboxes, urging citizens to vote against a Jan. 25 special town meeting warrant that includes three articles, all related to contracting with with Siemens Industry, Inc., the global company based in Germany, and which has offices in Maine and New Hampshire.
The proposal before Camden voters asks if they want to borrow $2.3 million over 17-year period to address a series of renovations and energy efficiency improvements at municipal properties and buildings. Camden’s Select Board has been discussing the proposal for months, following an energy audit of municipal buildings and functions, also conducted by Siemen’s over the past year.
At their Jan. 5 regularly scheduled meeting, the Select Board had voted unanimously to place before voters at a special town meeting warrant articles that Siemens is to be hired, “to upgrade multiple public buildings, increase energy efficiency, and reduce long term energy demands and costs.”
Terms include signing a financing agreement/loan with Siemens for $2.336 million, amortized over a 17 year-period and with an annual interest rate not to exceed 2.5%.
The total loan amount of $2,336,000 is be reduced by, “any sums authorized to be drawn and paid from the Unassigned Fund Balance....”
And, if voters approve, an initial $200,000 is to be paid up-front to Siemens from the town’s Unassigned Fund Balance, which is also known as the Camden Reserve Fund.
On Jan. 22, Camden Select Board Chair Robert Falciani said that while he did not generally endorse special town meetings, this pending one was scheduled so as to take advantage of more attractive interest rates around 2.03 percent.
The town has received two competing bids for the financing, he said; one from Siemens, the other from Key Bank.
Participation in Monday evening’s 6 p.m. meeting will entail driving to the Snow Bowl, parking and tuning car radios to FM 88.5.
Voters are to be handed at the entrance one card, which is to be used for voting on the three articles: Raising a card out the car window will indicate a “yes” vote; keeping the card inside the vehicle counts as a “no” vote.
But planning for this unique, pandemic-rooted method of holding a special town meeting took an unexpected twist Friday. Residents reported that a flyer urging no votes on the warrant landed in mailboxes across town.
Additionally, Town Manager Caler received on Jan. 21 a letter from Kenneth D. Pierce, an attorney with Monaghan Leahy, based in Portland, objecting to the meeting, and the proposed performance contract with Siemens.
See attached DPF for complete letter.
Pierce said he represented an interested party that is asking the town to reconsider, “the timing, methodology and economics of the vote.”
He continued that if the town, “should proceed, my client will take whatever steps necessary to protest the validity of the outcome of the vote.”
On Jan. 22, Attorney Pierce told Penobscot Bay Pilot that his: “firm was retained on behalf of an interested party who has concerns that the project was not put out to bid as is customary. Beyond that, I cannot comment.”
In the letter, Pierce said the town’s process was flawed, adding: “Climate action is an honorable initiative that Camden is undertaking, we simply request that the initiative be supported fairly by all Town of Camden Voters.”
He cited the meeting should not proceed and if it did, would amount to voter suppression, given potential hardships of citizens to get to the Snow Bowl as organized.
Pierce said the contract should be considered via a process involving a request for proposals and advertised. By selecting Siemens as it did the town acted inconsistent with the State of Maine municipal standards.
“My client takes issue with the procurement process and will seek remedy through the courts if this time-tested process is not honored,” Pierce wrote.
And, he alleged, while providing links to newspaper articles, that: “the proposed contractor has fallen far short of expectations in similar municipal contracts in the Northeast and across the country.”
Camden responds
Late in the day Jan. 22, Town Manager Caler emailed the municipality’s answer to Pierce.
She acknowledged that the Jan. 25 meeting, is not “optimal, but nothing is in this time of COVID-19 when work must be done, and town government must do its best to proceed with the issues of the day.”
See attached PDF for full letter
Caler then addressed what Pierce’s “non-substantive issues.” She suggested the place to take up such concerns is appropriate at the town meeting itself, or at the prior public meeting when the Select Board approved the warrant articles.
“All special town meetings in historical memory have taken place in the evening after the typical work day, to accommodate working citizens,” she wrote. “Your conjecture that the scheduled Jan. 25 special town meeting surmounts to ‘voter suppression’ implies that all open town meetings/special town meetings in Maine routinely and regularly suppress voters.”
She said that is an issue for the Maine Legislature, and corrected Pierce on his categorization of Camden’s form of government. Pierce had, in his letter, referred two the Camden Town Council, when, in fact, Camden runs under a select board model of governance.
Caler told Pierce that the traditional town meeting location of the Camden Opera House would not accommodate more than 50 people during the pandemic and under the current executive order issued by Gov. Janet Mills concerning gatherings.
While the Snow Bowl technology will be “low tech”, she said, using car radios and mobile microphones, voters will still be seen and heard, from the “warmth of their car, except when speaking.”
She concluded her letter by saying: “I recommend that instead of your client focusing their efforts on ‘protesting the validity of the vote,’ they participate in local direct democracy by showing up at the Special Town Meeting on Monday. Jan. 25, and expressing their concerns with this project.”
Who sent the flyer advocating against the special town meeting?
When asked whether Pierce’s client produced and circulated the flyer, Pierce responded: “Certainly this firm had no connection and I am fairly certain neither did my client. Instead we plan to voice our objection to the bidding process at the meeting on Monday.”
The town of Camden, meanwhile, is sleuthing to determine who sent the flyer urging citizens to oppose the Siemens contract.
Reach Editorial Director at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657
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