RUMFORD - After voting 3-2 last month to support local lawyer Seth Carey's proposed casino for Oxford County, selectmen at Thursday's board meeting quickly distanced themselves from it.

"I really don't think that selectmen or the town manager should be involved," Selectman Brad Adley said.

It was Adley and Selectman Robert Cameron who opposed board support at the Aug. 21 meeting, but Adley changed his mind last week after a 60-minute closed-door session among Rumford Town Manager Len Greaney, three Rumford selectmen and Carey. That session took place during a Board of Selectmen meeting.

"This is a private business running a referendum. ...This is way too much of a hot potato. We should cut and run. We don't need to be here," Adley said.

Selectman Frank DiConzo agreed, telling the board that it needs to back off, wash its hands of the plan and let people statewide vote in November on whether to allow a casino in Oxford County.

Cameron was absent Thursday night.

Prior to this decision, Len Greaney explained what led to the sudden reversal, claiming the Sun Journal had accused Greaney and selectmen of convening an illegal meeting last week when Greaney and three selectmen met behind closed doors with Carey.

"The newspapers continue to shoot us down," Greaney said. "I've had some long conversations with the editorial staff of the Sun Journal. They were very unhappy about that meeting we had last week because it looked like we may have broken a couple of procedural rules and they may in fact be correct."

Greaney said the decision to enter executive session may have been a mistake in judgment, but not the content of that meeting in which Carey wanted to share confidential information.

He said he'd invited Sun Journal editors to hold a Freedom of Information workshop with Rumford officials.

Greaney then sought to correct statements attributed to him in an Aug. 29 story about the Aug. 28 closed-door session meeting.

"Regarding the comments in the paper, some are accurate and some are misstated, well, if anyone wants to know the truth, come to me to learn both sides of the story," he said.

Greaney said he was misquoted when a Sun Journal reporter wrote that he said, "If the casino wins (in referendum), Rumford would be in a sales mode."

"I said, 'If the referendum passes, and' - and that 'and' is important and was left out - 'and the citizens would like a casino, then we would move into sales mode,'" Greaney said.

After the meeting adjourned, Greaney said he probably should learn more about Maine's law regarding executive sessions.