Cruise ship backers lose two rounds in one morning
BAR HARBOR, Dec. 18, 2024 - The local cruise ship-dependent businesses struck out twice this morning in separate proceedings.
In Augusta, the state ethics commission voted unanimously to find no merit in a complaint from APPLL president Kristi Bond that citizens groups who opposed an ordinance to relax passenger caps had violated state ethics rules.
The ethics commission took the recommendation of Executive Director Jonathan Wayne, who submitted a 36-page document from his staff stating that none of a “loose” group of citizens who met on Sundays spent more than the $5,000 threshold to require registration with the Commission as a ballot question committee.
“The question of whether their association was required to register as a ballot question committee rests on whether they received more than $5,000 in contributions or made more than $5,000 in expenditures for the purpose of opposing the referendum,” Wayne wrote.
He identified resident Peter Scott as a consultant to this loose group of residents who received a $3,000 donation from Friends of Frenchman’s Bay on Sept. 23, 2024 and another $1,000 donation from the same organization on Oct. 2.
Wayne did not include a $1,189.25 7 payment made by Norene Hunter to the Ellsworth American for a half-page ad, saying Scott told him Norene Hunter was not part of the group that met on Sundays.
“Ms. Hunter independently decided on her own to pay for a newspaper advertisement. She paid for the ad and wrote the language for the ad. Her only collaboration with Mr. Scott’s group was tangential,” Wayne stated.
Scott issued this statement after the decision:
“On behalf of all the Bar Harbor residents that voted again to support strict limits on cruise ship visitation, we are pleased that the Maine Ethics Commission found that APPLL’s complaint was without merit. We urge APPLL and Ocean Properties to end the expensive litigation against the Town so that we may all turn to unresolved issues such as the need for affordable housing and the continued protection of our land and water.
On Nov. 5, voters narrowly defeated a Town Council initiative in partnership with cruise lines and APPLL to repeal the 1,000 passenger daily cap on cruise ship passengers approved by citizens on Nov. 8, 2024.
APPLL is the Association to Preserve and Protect Local Livelihoods which is suing in multiple courts to overturn the passenger cap.
Also this morning, a short-handed, three-person appeals board voted unanimously to deny Golden Anchor’s appeal of its notice of violations issued by the the town’s code enforcement officer.
The appeal was denied on grounds that Golden Anchor violated town code when it disembarked passengers without a permit on July 25, 2024.
Golden Anchor operates the private dock where passengers are disembarked from cruise ships. It is owned by Ocean Properties.
The appeal board met for almost two hours. It was a continuation of a six-hour meeting on Dec. 10, when it was disclosed that a ethics complaint had been filed against member Cara Ryan, who said she learned of the complaint only minutes before the start of the meeting. She and chair Anna Durand recused themselves.
The complainant was identified as Eben Salvatore, who manages the cruise ship disembarkation business for Ocean Properties and also is a part-owner in a land-based touring business.
Town Clerk Liz Graves agreed that disclosure of the ethics violation complaint at the appeal board meeting Dec. 10 appeared to violate the confidentiality clause of the ethics ordinance:
“During the filing of a complaint, preliminary review, investigation and hearing, no allegation, complaint, report, or information supplied to, generated by or received from the Commission shall be disclosed to any third party by a complainant, accused, witness, designated party, employee, member or Commissioner, except upon the written request of the accused or as needed by the Town Manager and Clerk to administer the intent of this section.”
When asked what remedies the town had to address such a violation, Graves said she didn’t know.
"The local cruise ship-dependent businesses . . . "
I would suggest that many of these businesses are dependent on excessive, invasive, unsustainable, and now illegal levels of cruise ship tourism by choice. Many were doing just fine for decades until they saw an opportunity to profit on expanding cruise ship tourism. Despite a decade of publicly expressed public opposition to expanding cruise ship tourism, these business owners undertook their own unsustainable expansions - gambling on town council apathy about quality of life and environmental impact and town council cruise ship activism steamrolling residents. Their business model did not factor in sustained and successful citizen opposition. And like many businesses, when their bad bets failed and their bills came due they expected government to pick up their losses - in this case by obstructing and breaking the law. Well the conspiratorial Bar Harbor town councils and managers - stop doing your dirty work behind closed doors and NDAs and I'll retract that word - complied. But all their specious rhetoric and fallacious assertions have failed to convince and/or corrupt state and federal government. And for all their crying poor-mouth, these 'business leaders' have deeper pockets than Bar Harbor and seem endlessly willing to bankrupt their hometown to line their own pockets.
"Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room? There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity. You can smell it. It smells like death."
Big Daddy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Tennessee Williams
Thank you Lincoln for publishing the entire ethics complaint which demonstrates that our Maine government did their investigation thoroughly and fairly, and the handful of citizens produced their actual receipts of their expenses and gave clear descriptions of their activities, and complied with the law.
Furthermore, I have worked with some of these outstanding and selfless citizens in years past on other issues where year round residents were being impacted adversely by Big Business and the Town Managers and various Councils . As continues today, these entities were joined at the hip to thwart citizens, no matter how egregious the matter was. Most of these citizens had to dig deep into meager resources to pay for an ad, or a flyer. Some simply made their own signs , wrote numerous columns or letters to the editor , did hours and hours of research , and sat for countless hours at Council, Board ,and Committee meetings.
These citizens spent their personal time fighting for a balanced year round community ….and earned nothing for their many hours of work. Various citizens, always just a handful and differing people on the many issues over more than a decade, have worked hard to keep Bar Harbor a town where people want to live year round, not just make millions during the tourist season, and then board up the shop windows and leave.
So I save my biggest thanks to these dedicated and caring citizens who continue to fight the good fight to make Bar Harbor a wonderful place to live and work…year round…and actually much nicer for our visitors, too.