AUGUSTA — House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, on Tuesday called on the state’s attorney general to take action over a closed-door meeting of a newly formed blue ribbon commission on public education.
At least four lawmakers in leadership roles in the Republican and Democratic caucuses at the State House participated in the breakfast meeting hosted by Republican Gov. Paul LePage at the governor’s mansion, the Blaine House, on Monday.
LePage’s staff denied public entry to the meeting Monday morning, saying it was an executive commission and only those invited to attend would be allowed into the mansion, which sits across the street from the State House.
“As you know, Gov. LePage prohibited the public, including Democratic Education Committee members, press, a member of my staff, and other interested individuals from attending and observing the Commission meeting in clear violation of Maine’s Freedom of Access Act,” Eves wrote to Maine Attorney General Janet Mills. “In direct contradiction to FOAA, and with no explanation, Governor LePage held the Commission meeting without public notice, at a location closed to the public, and actively barred attendance by anyone other than those he personally invited.”
Also on Tuesday, LePage said the executive branch was withdrawing its involvement in the commission, which was created by legislation sponsored by Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, at LePage’s request.
LePage lashed out at the media during a radio talk show Tuesday morning, blaming the media for being overly critical of him and noting that his administration’s participation would make the commission a target for even greater political criticism.
He said he would have preferred to have set the commission up as an executive commission so it could do its work in secret beyond the criticism of the public or the media.
In his letter to Mills on Tuesday, Eves urged her to “move forward with available sanctions to ensure that future meetings of this Commission and all other public proceedings will be open to the public and held with ample notice.”
The only sanction for violating the state’s open-meetings law is a $500 fine, but that fine can only be imposed by a judge following a civil lawsuit in the Superior Court of jurisdiction. In recent years, efforts to stiffen penalties for FOAA violations have been defeated.
At least two lawmakers, Rep. Sara Gideon and Sen. Justin Alfond, both Democrats, attended the meeting Monday knowing it was in violation of the state’s open-meetings law. They said they wanted to be there to represent their constituents’ interests. Gideon is the House assistant majority leader and Alfond is the Senate minority leader.
Alfond said he objected to the secrecy during the meeting Monday and tried for a week preceding the meeting to convince LePage’s staff to hold it in public.
Lindsay Crete, a spokeswoman for Eves, said Alfond and Gideon and the other lawmakers, House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport, and Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon, who participated in the meeting, should not be sanctioned because they did not convene the meeting and had no control over who had access.
Timothy Feeley, a spokesman for Mills, said her office was reviewing the details of Monday’s meeting but, as they previously said, no apparent exemption in law would allow LePage to close the meeting to the public.
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