How ex-Bar Harbor cruise ship committee member got big payout from Maine utilities
OTHER NEWS: Will SWH extend sewer to Seawall? Will taxpayers be on the hook for plant upgrade? Some towns nervous about 'sanctuary city' declarations
BAR HARBOR - Sarah Flink, member of the now defunct cruise ship committee and an architect of the town’s 2022 agreements with the industry, reaped a huge payout with her husband representing Maine’s utilities in their $37 million campaign to defeat a proposed public takeover in November.
According to public filings, Flink was paid $188,873 by the utilities since 2021. Her husband, Willy Ritch was paid $396,406 since 2021, and his sole proprietorship, Salt Public Affairs, $235,394.
The proposal for a public takeover of Maine’s two utility companies was soundly defeated in a statewide referendum in November. But Bar Harbor voters supported it overwhelmingly 1,074 to 854.
Flink is executive director of CruiseMaine, which defines itself as “part of the Maine Office of Tourism.”
Maine has a statute prohibiting “officers in the classified service” of the state from interfering with a partisan election. Is the Office of Maine Tourism such a classified service?
“The Maine Office of Tourism is a client of my company, Spring Line Group, and we are contracted to run CruiseMaine for the Maine Office of Tourism,” Flink stated in an email. “I am not a state employee. Just as an advertising agency, for example, might contract with the State and simultaneously have other clients, both my company and I are free to take on work outside of our contract with the Office of Tourism.”
But as executive director of CruiseMaine, does that make her an “officer” as defined in Title 5 of the state statutes? The CruiseMaine website makes no mention of Spring Line Group.
What exactly did Flink do to earn that money?
The same question was put to her husband who was the campaign manager of CMP-backed Maine Affordable Energy by Steve Mistler of Maine Public in October over $800,000 spent for a vendor named Sea Salt and Spruce.
Ritch declined to be specific about its spending, stating, “I’m not going to pull back the curtain on our campaign strategy or operation. We follow all the Maine ethics rules for (campaign finance) reporting to the letter, but we have no obligation to go into the resume of our vendors or employees ...”
Mistler questioned the company’s transparency in an article Oct. 19 entitled,”A look at the secretive, expensive campaign to turn Maine voters against Pine Tree Power.”
“There’s no indication that Maine Affordable Energy or Sea Salt and Spruce are skirting any state campaign finance laws. However, the lack of transparency about the services the firm is providing leaves questions about its role in the second most expensive referendum in state history,” Mistler reported.
Ritch, former spokesperson for US Rep. Chellie Pingree, is a well-known political operative in Maine.
Flink’s role in Bar Harbor was the subject of recent scrutiny.
Flink was removed by the Town Council in September from a small working group tasked with negotiating new contracts with cruise lines after several councilors raised questions about the conflict between her advocacy for the industry against the town’s interest.
The council overrode chair Val Peacock’s support for Flink. Peacock said she found Flink’s perspective valuable and did not think she was an advocate for the cruise ship industry,
Vice chair Gary Friedmann said, “It’s clear that Sarah Flink is representative of the cruise lines. Her job with the state is to encourage cruise ship visitation.”
You may watch the exchange starting at 3:29 into the Sept. 19 meeting.
CruiseMaine’s own mission statement as it appears on its website stated:
“With the guidance of its four state partners, the CruiseMaine Coalition is dedicated to the promotion, education and support of Maine communities seeking sustainable cruise ship tourism, infrastructure investment, and economic and destination development.”
She was part of a council task force which negotiated passenger limits with the industry in defiance of a citizens initiative which called for much stricter visitation limits in 2022.
Former Town Manager Kevin Sutherland, along with Peacock and former councilor Jill Goldthwait, asked Flink to join their negotiating team which came up with a 4,000-a-day passenger limit instead of the 1,000-a-day limit approved overwhelmingly by citizens in November 2022. Moreover, those agreements had to be renegotiated every year.
After a group of businesses led by former cruise ship committee chair Eben Salvatore sued to overturn the citizens ordinance, Sutherland proceeded to implement the council’s weaker agreements which are still in place.
In the fall of 2022, Sutherland, with Flink’s help, openly campaigned against the citizens ordinance.
Flink was one of two “industry representatives” on the council’s cruise ship committee which drew wide criticism for its activities. After Salvatore became a named plaintiff in the lawsuit against the town, calls to disband the committee grew into howls.
Salvatore, local manager of the passenger ferrying business owned by hotelier Ocean Properties, is also a member of the town’s Warrant Committee.
Flink was the first witness called by the plaintiffs, Association to Protect and Preserve Local Livelihoods, on behalf of its lawsuit in a three-day trial in US District Court in Bangor in July.
Councilor Maya Caines said the cruise ship committee was perceived by a majority of the public as “corrupt.”
“I don’t think that we can just say, ‘Well, they’re not all bad and they are trying their hardest,’” she said at the council meeting Sept. 19 when some members praised the work by the committee but then voted unanimously to disband it.
SWH mulls extending sewer line to Seawall, splitting cost of upgrading waste plant
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - Water and Sewer district manager Steve Kenney announced Tuesday, in reply to a question, that he is actively pursuing grants which might extend the town’s service from Manset to the Acadia National Park campground in Seawall.
Because it’s a federal property, Kenney told the select board he is hopeful federal grants would be available for the project which he estimated would cost $8 million.
Kenney said the park service attempted to construct a septic system “in the Eighties” which failed. He said he is also investigating whether that system can be repaired.
Some select board members appeared willing to split the baby to pay for the $27 million upgrade of the town’s 50-year-old waste water treatment plant which is in violation of current DEP standards.
While federal, state grants and loans will pay for most of the cost, the water and sewer district still faces $6.5 million in matching funds it must raise either from a rate increase among the 680 customers or a tax increase among all property owners, most of whom are not served by the district.
Select member Jim Vallette raised the possibility that taxpayers pick up a portion of the tab.
Kenney suggested that perhaps ratepayers be liable for the $2.5 matching funds needed for a DEP loan and that taxpayers pick up the $4.5 million needed to match a federal loan.
Chair Carolyn Ball said she thought splitting the cost was a good idea.
Member Luke Damon spotted what appeared to be an error in the calculation if taxpayers picked up the entire tab - 80 cents per million in valuation.
“Are you sure that's for per million and not per thousand as the way that we list out our taxes?” Damon asked.
According to state valuation records, SWH reported a tax base of $804 million in FY23.
If taxpayers footed the entire bill for the project, it would require a $643,000 tax increase, under the 80 cents per thousand estimate.
If taxpayers were not to pay anything, the average rate increase would be $150 a year, or a 30 percent increase, Kenney said.
The water and sewer district was created in 2015 under the belief that it would be a more economically efficient entity than as a town department, according to the Islander.
One select board member said there was an understanding that the taxpayers would support long-term capital cost such as a major upgrade to the plant on Apple Lane.
There was a feeling that keeping the harbor and surrounding coastline clean was a common interest in town, the member said.
But what started as a $15 million project in 2017 ballooned to $27 million with only one bidder interested in the project, according to this QSJ report on Oct. 1.
Still, Kenney told the select board Tuesday, the project will only get more expensive and there is no guarantee the federal and state grants will be availing in the future.
Mount Desert is the only town on MDI which has a program to subsidize non sewer customers for their septic maintenance cost.
Migrants at the gate? Is MDI prepared? Or is this only a Mount Desert/Bar Harbor problem?
NORTHEAST HARBOR - Imagine 20 asylum families, unannounced, suddenly at our doorsteps, needing refuge. Or 40 families. Or 200 families.
Six years ago, this town might even have welcomed an appeal for help as in the following email, and rendered its request as innocuous.
But in September 2023, it set off alarm bells.
“I am writing this as an inquiry about your town's sanctuary status. I see that in 2017 Mt. Desert voted and declared itself a Sanctuary Community,” wrote “Jenna” using a gmail account from “Maine Rising.”
“I would like to know where those assisting migrants would find the protocols in place for your town. Specifically, where migrant transports/buses would be able to safely go and receive assistance with housing, food and GA (general assistance). I am assuming the town office in your town? Please advise.”
Besides Mount Desert, Bar Harbor also voted in 2017 to be a “sanctuary community.”
Mount Desert Town Manager Durlin Lunt immediately recognized the letter’s potential implications.
This week, Lunt asked the League of Towns, of which he is chair, to prepare for a scenario which would not be in the best interest of any of the towns surrounding MDI - the sudden influx of migrant families seeking asylum in a region which already is battling a housing crisis- unless the towns had a plan.
The League is an area consortium of town managers to solve common challenges.
His view was not shared by all attending - representatives from Trenton, Bar Harbor, Tremont, Southwest Harbor, Acadia National Park and the Maine CDC.
Bar Harbor Town Manager James Smith, two full weeks into his new job, questioned why the state hasn’t assumed responsibility for the migrant crisis which has paralyzed Portland and other towns in Southern Maine.
Smith seemed not to know, nor appreciate, that Bar Harbor became a prominent target by declaring itself a sanctuary city in 2017. The state played no role in that declaration. He did not reply to an email asking whether he knew of the declaration or what obligations his town assumed by such a declaration.
Did he seek legal advice on the town’s exposure before trying to pawn it off on the state?
Veteran manager Durlin Lunt knew the blame game was fruitless. If he had migrants at the gate, he wanted to be prepared.
He engaged Al May, district liaison for Maine CDC, who spoke first of a humanitarian commitment.
Immediate considerations include medical care, food, shelter and law enforcement, May said.
He recommended an area-wide summit in the spring to plan for any emergency arrival of asylum seekers like those who have stretched the resources of municipalities in Southern Maine.
“It's not just a response in the first couple of weeks like other type of emergencies. It's going to be something to consider for a longer term,” May said. “They're going to be around for six months to a year or potentially longer.”
To Bar Harbor Smith’s assertion that the state’s inaction was forcing this issue onto the towns, May agreed that the state has “pretty much washed their hands of the problem and let the towns deal with it.” But that only pressed the need for a local response.
In Portland, there was a battle for assistance between traditional users of services and asylum seekers “snapping them up,” May said.
“So you're not even taking care of your local people because of the new people and that obviously sets up some really potential issues - to develop stigma, develop a whole lot of other anger and all the other stuff that you can think of about immigration.”
Another participant raised the specter of unintended consequences and whether the planning itself would be putting MDI and surroundings “up on the radar.”
Tremont Town Manager Jesse Dunbar questioned the exposure to towns which did not declare themselves as sanctuary cities.
“I'm in agreement with being prepared but where Mount Desert and Bar Harbor made the decision they wanted to be sanctuary cities and the other towns decided they didn't, does participating in this exercise expose those other towns to the same things Mount Desert and Bar Harbor already volunteered for?
“Are we then saying we're on the list too? Or are we just being prepared?”
Al May pointed out that you don’t have to be a sanctuary city to become a target.
“You may not know this, but Portland was shipping people without a whole lot of notice, to Sanford, to York County, Lewiston. They were looking at Unity College and not talking to the Town of Unity and they were just going to ship a busload of people up to Unity use that college site.
“So it doesn't have to be a sanctuary city to have towns just throw their hands and say I can't do this. I'm gonna send them to somebody else. That's what's happening in the state.
“Sanford got got hit pretty hard and they threw their hands up in the air and didn't know what to do.”
One warning sign for MDI is that the relief agencies seemed to have sussed out the communities with hotel rooms because they are the most obvious places for immediate accommodations, and Bar Harbor has plenty of those.
More than 100 asylum seekers arrived in Sanford over a few days in early May to request support through General Assistance, quickly overwhelming the city’s resources. City officials placed 28 families in hotel rooms and warned others not to come because there were no more rooms available.
Those asylum seekers were first-time General Assistance applicants and qualified for 30 days of emergency housing, City Manager Steven Buck said. Most were placed at the Sanford Inn, and a few stayed at the Quality Inn or elsewhere in the community. But housing vouchers didn’t cover the higher cost of rooms during the summer tourist season.
I hope that everyone who voted for Bar Harbor and Mount Desert to be sanctuary communities takes migrants into their own homes if they show up. If not, they’re complete hipocrites.