Police officers gathered to protest labor negotiations during Monday’s meeting.
By Scott Taylor
Staff Writer

AUBURN – Councilors squared off again Monday night over the contents of the Sept. 8 council meeting minutes.

Councilor Belinda Gerry’s bid to make the minutes more specific Monday was turned back by Mayor Norm Guay.

Gerry wanted the minutes to say that Councilors Joe DeFilipp, Richard Livingston and Kelly Matzen urged Councilor Bob Mennealy to resign after criticizing him at that meeting.

With Councilor Livingston absent from Monday’s meeting, the vote split with Gerry, Mennealy and Bethel Shields voting to change the minutes and Matzen, DeFilipp and Norm Bilodeau voting to adopt them. Guay cast the deciding vote to leave them alone.

“I didn’t want to beat a dead horse, but I thought we should have some record to reflect what happened at that meeting,” Gerry said. “Since we don’t have an audio recording, I thought we should say something more in the written record.”

City Clerk Mary Lou Magno announced last week that the audio tape recording of the Sept. 8 meeting was blank. That meeting included scathing criticisms of Mennealy from Guay, Livingston, DeFilipp and Matzen. Mennealy defended asking the state to investigate City Manager Pat Finnigan and refused to resign.

Gerry first objected to the minutes at the Sept. 22 meeting. They didn’t include any hint of the exchange, and she asked to have them included. Magno added three sentences to the minutes:

“Mayor Guay and Councilors DeFilipp, Livingston and Matzen, expressed their concerns regarding Councilor Mennealy’s recent request to the Attorney General for an investigation of City Manager Pat Finnigan. Councilor Mennealy spoke in support of his actions. Councilor Gerry said she disagreed with Councilor Mennealy’s method, but understood his reasoning.”

Magno discovered that the tape was blank while she was trying to rewrite the minutes. Magno said she didn’t know if the tape had been accidentally erased or if the recording equipment had failed.

“It’s unfortunate that this has happened, but we have taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Guay said.

The city bought and installed a new recording system with two tape decks.

But the erased tape was on the minds of many sitting in the audience.

Auburn police broke out the picket signs for the meeting to protest labor negotiations between the police union and the city. Many of the signs referenced the blank tape.

Officers sat quietly in the front of the council meeting Monday, holding signs that stated “1983: Where’s the Beef? 2003: Where’s the tape?” “Good Faith?” “Give Truth a Chance,” and “Auburn: Spend today, tax tomorrow.”

Auburn resident Mary Roussel, of 59 Grandview Ave., said she wanted to see more in the Sept. 8 minutes.

“I feel that when she asked to have more details put in, she did a fair and even-handed job of describing it,” Roussel said. “Why would you vote that down?”

Councilor Matzen said after the meeting he voted against it because he criticized Mennealy but didn’t call for him to resign. Matzen said he also disagrees with putting anything but votes and decisions in the City Council minutes.

staylor@sunjournal.com