AUBURN – Mayor Normand Guay urged Bob Mennealy to keep their discussions on the record Monday night.
Guay read an e-mail he received from Mennealy two weeks ago at Monday’s meeting. In the e-mail, Mennealy said he felt the city’s ethics review process had failed.
That sentiment belonged in a council meeting, Guay said.
“There is nothing gained by having government over the Internet,” Guay said. “There’s nothing wrong with the Internet, but it’s not the City Council chambers.”
Mennealy and Councilor Belinda Gerry hold that Councilor Kelly Matzen, a local attorney, has a business relationship with Great Falls Plaza developers and should not have voted on a bond issue for a plaza parking garage. The two asked the Ethics Committee to review Matzen’s vote.
The three-member panel met late in March, but member Earl Austin recused himself, saying he was a friend of Matzen and had a conflict of interest. Rev. Paul Martz and panel chairman Peter Garcia then asked the city to appoint an alternate member. Councilors appointed Dennis Mailhot earlier this month but turned back a proposal that would have allowed Martz to keep his position. Martz also serves on the Community Development Loan Committee and city ordinances ban ethics panel members from having other city affiliations.
Martz officially resigned from the ethics committee in an April 15 letter to councilors.
“The ethics process has failed,” Mennealy said. “It’s weeks past and nothing has happened.”
Guay said he wanted to see the ethics committee rule on Matzen’s vote. But councilors need to discuss those matters publicly, not privately.
“I say it to any councilor, to myself,” Guay said. “This is where government runs, and where it should run.”
staylor@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
