SPECIAL REPORT: Council has a long history of trying to scuttle citizens opposition to cruise ships

Editor's Note: Below is a reprint of an article I did two years ago on how certain Bar Harbor councilors and the town attorney worked to delay citizens petition in 2022

BAR HARBOR, July 23, 2022 - The public hearing on the citizens petition to limit cruise ship visitors Tuesday night was a one-sided affair thanks to the actions of the town manager and council chair, prompting the lead petitioner to note “their unmistakeable pandering to this self-serving element in our community.”

The animus between town manager Kevin Sutherland and lead petitioner Charles Sidman is now nearing a boiling point.

It started earlier this year when Sidman lost patience with Sutherland’s lack of response to his request for data related to cruise ship visits. But it took a sharp turn for the worse July 15, when Sidman noticed the town had posted the wrong petition.

On Monday, Sidman lashed out and wrote to Sutherland, “This is not to be tolerated, either as unintended error or deliberate sabotage. I am simply shocked!”

Town Clerk Liz Graves had mistakenly posted an earlier version which limited “passengers,” later corrected to “persons” by the petitioners to account for crew members disembarking. The petition would limited persons disembarking to 1,000 a day.

But at the same time Graves was updating the corrected version Monday, Sutherland received a 25-page document from lawyers for Ocean Properties claiming the petition was unconstitutional. At Town Counsel Tim Pease’s suggestion, Sutherland forwarded the document to council members and recommended the council delay the vote to send the petition to voters in November. It was unclear whether Sutherland and the lawyers had other communications.

That gave cruise ship supporters on the council, Matt Hochman and Jeff Dobbs, ample time to review and begin the process to scuttle the citizens petition on behalf of Ocean Properties.

The QSJ asked Sutherland why he didn’t release the same documents to the press and the public on Monday. He did not reply.

So as the hearing began, most of those attending did not know some council members had already decided to delay the vote.

Citizens petitions are sanctified in Maine giving voters the right to take action when the local governments fail them. The council’s only role is to call a public hearing before moving the issue to the November ballot.

When the QSJ noted that the actions by council chair Val Peacock, Hochman and Dobbs to delay approval of the citizens petition appeared to have been orchestrated, Sutherland admitted he sent out attorney Andy Hamilton’s materials the night before the hearing.

“Andy provided the information that he presented to Council to me yesterday afternoon, which I forwarded to Council last night,” Sutherland wrote.

The council and Sutherland’s actions differed sharply with how the petitioners were treated.

Peacock repeatedly rebuffed Sidman’s attempt to speak a second time, saying she did not want a “back and forth.” But Sidman was not given the same opportunity to read the documents which Ocean Properties’ lawyers presented at the hearing, sent out in advance to Hochman and Dobbs to activate their move to delay.

Earlier in the evening Peacock had no problem allowing the differing sides of a live music permit to come to the mic multiple times.

Local businesses showed up in force Tuesday, but they reinforced the notion that cruise ships benefit only those businesses in a narrow area at the corner of West and Main streets near the dock - the Ocean Properties’ hotels, restaurants, tender service, West Street Cafe, Geddy’s, Testa, Ben and Bill’s ice cream emporium, Little Village Gifts and a few others. Most of them were thriving businesses before cruise ships reached their critical mass in the late Nineties.

Only one business south of Cottage street spoke against the petition. That was developer Stephen Coston, the former council member voted out of office in 2020 after he was the only member to oppose a ban on cruise ships during the pandemic.

The great majority of businesses in Bar Harbor did not attend.

A letter from the CEO of the hospital was read to correct the petition’s assertion that the hospital was unable to handle all visitors during tourism season.

While Peacock denied Sidman a second shot at the mic, she allowed a phalanx of Ocean Properties heavyweights to speak - two lawyers who said the same thing and Eben Salvatore, local manager of OP’s properties and chair of the cruise ship committee, the parking committee and now warrant committee member.

After the meeting Sidman wrote, in part:

“At the end I heard members of the Council talking as if their approval and constitutional vetting of the citizen's initiative was a condition for placing it on the ballot. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, because the the initiative process allows proponents to go ahead whether the authorities like it or not."

“Any legal arguments will be settled in court by the appropriate parties if and when the Initiative is passed by voters, but not by Council pretending to neutrally consider the opinions of attorneys hired by itself or any constituency at this stage.

“And for the record, the Initiative was prepared carefully by experienced Maine civil attorneys, and even the prior Town Attorney formally opined that the Town can indeed regulate and limit the Cruise Ship industry.”

Eaton Peabody has represented Ocean Properties well over the years as the company grew to become one of the biggest hospitality enterprises in Maine and Florida.

In 2010, after a unanimous vote by the planning board to reject its application for a hotel on West Street, it won, by a of 3-2 vote of the appeals board. Mike Siklosi, Donald Bell, and board chairman Ellen Dohmen voted in favor of the hotel. Paul DeVore and Roger Samuel dissented, stating that the planning board made the right decision.

A year earlier, OP successfully snuffed out the town’s efforts to bring tender service back to the public docks.

Ruth Eveland, Jane Disney and Rob Jordan voted in favor of allowing routine cruise ship tender traffic at the town. Councilors Sandy McFarland, Paul Paradis, Peter St. Germain and Greg Veilleux voted against the measure

“That was the beginning of my demise,” said Nate Young, the former police chief beloved by many despite his multiple DUI arrests. “I dared not to be a team player.”

Young succeeded in securing a Homeland security clearance for Bar Harbor and was in the process of securing federal grants to open the town dock to tendering cruise ship passengers until it was rejected by the town council.

Bar Harbor has a history of successful citizens actions. The groups have been aggressive, loud and unrelenting. A citizens petition is not a garden party, and Sutherland is not the first town manager to cross swords with this ilk. His predecessor took it upon himself to change the townwide survey last year which became the foundation of the citizen’s complaint by allowing non residents to opine, drawing the ire of the anti-cruise ship coalition.

Near the end of the Tuesday’s hearing, retired surgeon and MDI native and historian Bill Horner said, “I came here to see how this all works, and what I'm struck by is that with the exception of a few people, most of the speakers here tonight have something to profit from this discussion. I operated under a principle of conflict of interest when I was in my professional life.

“But what really brought this on was the voice of the people - 60 percent of the people in Bar Harbor at some point in time (2021 survey).

“This referendum voice of the people is democracy. Democracies are in a tough time right now. And it's gonna get tougher, I believe. And I just want to ask the question, Where does this all end?”

You may read Eaton Peabody’s document here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P8pkv5e8b_Cv3CBoFbn5c3yIL-fQZ_UY/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107061827254036912405&rtpof=true&sd=true

You may watch the hearing here, starting at Minute 46.45:

https://townhallstreams.com/stream.php?location_id=37&id=42159.