Police this week urged city officials to make the mayor’s arrest report public.
AUBURN – The city has denied a Freedom of Access request to make public a report on police behavior in the arrest of Mayor Norm Guay.
In a letter to a Sun Journal lawyer, Auburn attorneys said the city is legally prohibited from releasing the report because it contains information that could lead to disciplinary action.
At a City Council meeting Monday, police officers at the center of the report urged officials to make it public.
“We are willing to waive all of our rights to keep it out of the public eye,” said Detective Chad Syphers, who is president of the Auburn police union.
Only City Manager Pat Finnigan and Police Chief Richard Small have had access to the 80-page report.
Finnigan maintains that because the report contains the names of police officers who are being investigated for misconduct, the report cannot be made public.
Even city councilors and the mayor reportedly have not seen it.
On Monday, Syphers appealed to Finnigan to let counselors see the report.
“That way, they can answer questions about our behavior honestly,” he said. “Just say the word and we’ll all sign a waiver or whatever. We waive all of our rights and urge the city to release it.”
Syphers, who was interviewed as part of the city’s investigation into the mayor’s arrest, said he was confident he had nothing to fear.
“The attorney told us that he didn’t see anything major,” Syphers said. “But we can’t say for sure because we have not seen the report.”
Background
Mayor Guay was arrested Aug. 4 after a tense council meeting attended by police union members who were protesting the lack of a new contract.
Guay left the meeting and went to Gipper’s Sports Grill where he drank three beers, according to Finnigan’s summary of the investigation report. Guay then returned to the Auburn City Building before heading home.
Several off-duty officers who had stayed after the meeting claimed they saw the mayor fumbling with his keys. They notified on-duty officers that the mayor could be driving drunk.
Guay was pulled over and given a roadside sobriety test, which officers said he failed. A Breathalyzer test showed he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.01 percent, one-eighth the legal limit of 0.08 percent. The mayor was issued a summons based on the field sobriety test, but the state attorney general later dropped the charges.
Auburn hired the Portland law firm of McCloskey, Mina and Cunniff a week later to investigate police actions and to determine how a copy of the police arrest report was made public. The firm turned over copies of the 80-page report to Finnigan in November.
Finnigan released a five-page memo Nov. 19 listing her concerns about police conduct based on her reading of the report.
On Nov. 20, the Sun Journal filed a request for the full report under the Maine Freedom of Access Law.
staylor@sunjournal.com
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