Letters to the Editor

More on Sangerville code of ethics

To the Editor:
    In reply to Selectwoman Melissa Randall’s comments in the July 2, 2014 article in the Observer: I will call it my ordinance but it is in fact our ordinance.

    Sometime in mid- to late-April, I spoke to the town officials about starting this ordinance. Between then and now we had many discussions about changes and editing from the first draft.
    On May 29, 2014 at a board meeting about my code of ethics ordinance, Melissa Randall did not follow the agenda and did not talk about any changes except from an ordinance to a policy with much resistance and deception.
    On June 26, 2014. Melissa Randall’s code of ethics policy was on the agenda.
    Mrs. Randall is still deceiving the public through this newspaper. She implies my code of ethics ordinance (7A) dated 6/13/14 is illegal, redundant and ill-conceived. My ordinance is in fact legal, (redundant?).
    I only strengthened the recall statute in which that statute allows us to do so, by stating the town officials abide by all Maine State laws and statutes and the policies and ordinances of the town of Sangerville without exception. I do not repeat any laws or statutes; I just simply say abide by them.
    She implies that if the laws change we will have to change the ordinance. Not true. If the laws or statutes change, the town officials will still have to abide by them without changing this ordinance.
    Ill-conceived? If there was ever a time this town needed a code of ethics ordinance, it is now and very well-conceived. And this is the only reason Melissa Randall prefers a policy and not an ordinance. Mrs. Randall is the only one that ever told me to stop working on this ordinance, not any other board member or the MMA, or any one else for that matter.
    At the May 29 board meeting, Melissa Randall, in fact, told me and the other board members she was, in no way, going to accept this ordinance and did not want to ever see it on the agenda again. So I started circulating our code of ethics petition for signatures on June 20.
    She also implies my ordinance does not apply to all town officials. It does apply to all elected and appointed town officials.
    In fact, I have been getting resistance and interference from Mrs. Randall right from the start through her deceptive comments and untrue statements, citing a MMA letter that is replying to an outdated and nonexistent board of selectmen ordinance that has nothing to do with my code of ethics ordinance dated 6/13/14.
    She is deceiving the public throughout the whole process at the town meetings and in public and interfering with my freely circulating a petition and in many other ways — such as disorderly conduct in public and slander as well as cyber-bullying over the Internet, in her campaign to stop this ordinance from getting to the public to vote on.
    She is now trying to enact a big city code of ethics policy so they do not have to comply with the same laws we do, and at the same time trying to block my code of ethics ordinance. So I had to prematurely file my petition to the town in order to get it on the agenda to the board of selectmen to put it on next year’s annual town meeting warrant as an article to vote on, before she succeeded to pass her policy, still using the outdated and nonexistent MMA letter as a reference, again interfering with my freely circulating my petition.
    My MMA letter says “The municipality is, of course, free to strengthen by local code any of these guidelines found in the statutes and in common law governing conflict of interest, incompatible offices, prohibited appointments/employment, bias, or, for that matter, any other area of ethical concern.”
    My petition was also removed from the counter in the town office before anyone could sign it, and was found later in the main office. I wonder who could have put it there?
    I could go on much more but I will stop for now.

Richard R. Dobson Sr.
Sangerville