Vulgarity mars final days of Bar Harbor campaign (Warning: salty language below)

OTHER NEWS: Conservationists urge defeat of zoning changes in rural parts of MDI

BAR HARBOR, June 1, 2024 - In a week of historic lows in our national discourse, this town went even lower with vulgar public attacks just days before its annual meeting and municipal elections, as all sides continued to flood the courts with filings related to the cruise ship lawsuits.

A reader sent the QSJ a Facebook post from sitting council member Matt Hochman in which he stated that anti-cruise ship council candidate Charles Sidman was the only one running who was unworthy of consideration. But Hochman didn’t stop there.

“Fuck that guy! And you can quote me,” Hochman wrote.

I asked Hochman by email to confirm that he was the author of the post. Hochman did not respond but instead wrote a follow-up post stating he will apologize to anyone who may have been offended by his use of vulgarity on his official council page.

As the wheels started to come off the tracks, Council chair Val Peacock issued a statement Friday which stated, in part:

“Ahoy Bar Harbor, there is no doubt that tensions, concerns, and emotions are running high as the Council is working through cruise ship policies.

“As we head into town meeting and local elections, I'd like to take a moment to remind us all that as members of a community we share a commitment to uphold the values of respect, integrity, and civility in our public discourse.”

Sidman reacted to her statement by saying the public vulgarity is not emanating from him. It’s only coming from her side, he said.

Hochman violated both the town’s ethics code and its social media policy in his public rant. I got no reply from Peacock nor any council member when I pointed that out.

Hochman stated he decided to “get ahead of this” because the QSJ was about to report he used his official council page to state the ad hominem attack on Sidman.

Earlier in the week, Hochman, apparently taking heat for proposing limits on campaign signs in town, wrote on Facebook:

Hochman clearly was reacting to an article I published May 19 on the proliferation of signs by Nina St. Germain and Michael Boland in which some questioned whether they created distractions that made driving unsafe.

But his use of vulgar language similar to stickers which appeared in downtown and also reported by the QSJ begged the question of whether there was a connection. The QSJ published photos of the offensive stickers sent in by a reader who said he removed some of them, put them on paper and sent them to council members and the police.

Hochman was the council’s liaison to its cruise ship committee which was a promotional vehicle for the industry and whose activity was characterized as “corrupt” by council member Maya Caines at a public meeting.

Famously, Hochman was at the Jan. 5, 2023 meeting of the cruise ship committee when he did nothing to stop then Town Manager Kevin Sutherland’s disclosure of the town’s legal strategy and other ways the town could be sued, all in front of Eben Salvatore, a named plaintiff in the lawsuit who signed an affidavit in APPLL’s lawsuit against the town.

The cruise ship committee meetings were rarely recorded, but luckily someone did on Jan. 5, 2023.

Recently, Hochman was the first council member to register outrage when Sidman’s lawyers named all the council members, as required, to file its suit in Superior Court to compel the council to enforce the 1,000 daily cap on passenger visitation approved by voters Nov. 8, 2022 and upheld by federal judge Lance Walker March 1, 2024.

Hochman, Peacock and member Kyle Shank fueled the enmity toward Sidman by making it sound like they were personally liable for their votes which was not true.

The naming of individual council members on a legal document is just that - the naming of the composition of the council.

How will Judge Walker react to all the sturm and drang as he is being asked by APPLL to issue an injunction against his own ruling, after that request was rejected by the circuit court of appeals in Boston and remanded back to Walker?

APPLL’s lead plaintiff, operator of the sole tender service for cruise ships, stated in court filings Friday it lost at least $664,000 in fees because Royal Caribbean cruise lines canceled 17 ship visits this season. The association of marine pilots who also are suing the town claimed they lost $500,000 in fees so far because of the reduced volume.

All of which was already addressed by Walker when he made his ruling.

“The Ordinance imposes some burden on the ‘free flow’ of commerce, but that burden is impossible to quantify,” Walker wrote. “The 1,000-person limitation is a significant downshift from the passenger caps previously observed in Bar Harbor. But that downshift also promotes noneconomic interests.

“The voters of Bar Harbor ‘weigh[ed] the relevant ‘political and economic’ costs and benefits for themselves,’ and the voters evidently decided that the noneconomic benefits of the Ordinance favored adopting it.”

Sidman added that not all local businesses have suffered from the passenger declines and he will show in court filing that some businesses may actually be better off.

In March 2023, Walker granted Sidman’s bid to join the APPLL lawsuit against the town as a intervenor defendant and wrote,

“Indeed, there is a strong showing in the record so far adduced that the Town has long given over to one or more agents of the Walsh family enterprises (i.e., most of the nominal plaintiffs) what appears (upon first impression) to be carte blanche in matters of Bar Harbor’s informal and voluntary cruise ship policy.”

FOOTNOTE: Following are relevant sections of the town’s ethics code and social media policy related to Hochman’s public statements about Sidman:

Political activities:

“No member shall participate in any political activity which would be in conflict or incompatible with the performance of his/her official functions and duties for the Town. In conjunction therewith, no member may use his/her official authority or position for the purposes of influencing or interfering with or affecting the results of any election.”

Social media policy:

“Don’t use town devices to maintain your private account. 

“Don’t attack people or be rude when responding to town related questions. 

“Don’t state or insinuate you are responding to a town related question in an official manner, especially if you are using a personal account.”

Vote no on Articles 3 and 4 to amend zoning, say conservationists fearing water contamination

TOWN HILL - Several influential residents and environmental activists are urging voters at the June 11 elections to oppose amendments to relax housing density in the rural part of town where there is no water or sewer service.

The amendments to the land-use ordnance are the products of a year of hearings, listening sessions, Planning Board and Town Council discussions to increase housing - all of which were held before the town planning staff was made aware of DEP’s recent designation of the island’s largest watershed as “impaired marine waters.”

By the time it was publicly disclosed by the QSJ in April, the wheels carrying the amendments were far down the track and too late to stop for the annual June elections.

Carol Chappell, who chairs a subcommittee of the Warrant Committee, recently wrote to about 100 residents who sought her views to vote no on two of the LUO amendments - Article 3 on “shared accommodations” and Article 4 on increased housing mandates to be consistent with state law.

“Protection of our water and watersheds, important natural resources in our town, is of utmost importance as we move forward to increase housing,” Chappell wrote in her email. “These articles have the potential to substantially increase housing density in sections of town with no public water and sewer.”

Another influential voice, Dennis Bracale, lead plaintiff in the landmark 2013 lawsuit which halted large-scale hotel development in Hull’s Cove and multiple other zoning changes around town, also urged defeat of Articles 3 and 4 in his recent letter in the Islander:

“Considering the serious risk to our wells and water resources posed by major increases in development across large areas of Bar Harbor with no access to public water and sewer (for example, parts of Village Residential, Salsbury Cove, Hulls Cove, Ireson Hill, Hadley Point and Town Hill), please vote “no” on two articles — Article 3, ‘Shared Accommodations’ with structures for up to 32 people and Article 4, ‘Increased Housing Opportunities,’ which would greatly expand the density in areas which are without public water and sewer and to date have not been studied in regards to their ecological suitability.”

Resident Ed Damm, who operated our Song of the Sea store on West Street with his wife from 1983 to 2009, told the Planning Board earlier this year, “In Bar Harbor we have very thin soils, clay, and ledge. We aren’t flat and we have no glacial moraines with sand and gravel. We would all like more housing, but without being on public water and sewer, there is a great chance, unless a property has many acres, one’s property’s septic system will contaminate the lots around it. We don’t have enough testing set up to know what septic load the rural districts can handle.”

Dessa Dancy and Jake Jagel, former members of the Conservation Committee and Warrant Committee, wrote in the Islander not to rush to liberalize density before the impact on water resources have been fully understood.

“The good news is that these five growth areas with serious groundwater issues will not be included as ‘designated growth areas’ in the new comprehensive plan! This means that after adoption of our new comprehensive plan, at our next town meeting in June 2025, we can then safely comply with the LD 2003 requirements. Until then, to protect critical water resources and the health of residents with private wells, now and into the future, it’s necessary to vote No on ballot question 4 at this time.”

LD2003 is the new state law relaxing density requirements.

“Actually, there is no state mandate. As confirmed by our town attorney, the state is not enforcing this housing legislation. We, of course, need to comply with state law, but in the big push to adopt these changes at the June 2024 town meeting, other state laws and potential impacts on water resources have been ignored.”

Chappell stated similar concerns with Article 4.

“Too many ideas rolled into one document, almost impossible for the voter to understand. 

“Multi-Family Dwellings [between two and four housing units per lot where housing is permitted] would be allowed in 8 districts without public water and/or sewer - Ireson Hill Corridor, Ireson Hill Residential. Salisbury Cove Corridor, Salisbury Cove Residential, Salisbury Cove Village, Town Hill Business, Town Hill Residential Corridor, Town Hill Residential. 

“The 2035 Comp Plan will have 2 designated growth areas, Downtown and Hulls Cove, which have public water and sewer. We should wait until the 2035 Comprehensive Plan has been enacted. We have been told the new Comprehensive Plan will protect the areas without public water and sewer.”

On Article 3, Chappell said the the districts being added for shared accommodations are not clearly defined.

“These buildings do not need to be on employer property. Anyone can build them and house anyone they want, within licensing guidelines.

“This amendment would allow the building of Shared Accommodation 2, a building for 9-32 people, in the Ireson Hill Corridor and Town Hill Business districts. These districts do not have access to public water and/or sewer systems.

“This is an unacceptable increase in density for these areas. Watershed studies suggested in the 2007 Comprehensive Plan have not been implemented and we don’t know the status of the Northeast Creek Watershed.

Bracale stated that Acadia National Park officials have expressed alarm at the pace of development near the island’s most precious and largest watershed, Northeast Creek.

A coalition has formed on behalf of the Northeast Creek watershed in response to the many concerns of the public over the health and sustainability of the island’s water resources.

“Representatives from Acadia National Park, College of the Atlantic, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the Conservation Commission, Bar Harbor Planning Department and others have joined in conversation around the health and sustainability of the watershed,” Bracale wrote.

“Of further concern, in section V.H-3 in the 2007 Bar Harbor Comprehensive Plan, the analysis of the level of contamination risk shows that of the 24 large campgrounds, motels and commercial areas, 17 were listed as having a moderate to high risk of contamination in the future and many already had serious problems.”