AUBURN – An Auburn city councilor is demanding to see copies of the city’s report on police behavior.

Councilor Bob Mennealy has filed a Freedom of Information request to see a copy of a report prepared by Portland lawyers for City Manager Pat Finnigan. The report investigates police handling of the Aug. 11 arrest of Mayor Norm Guay.

“I suggest that your failure to release this report further erodes the public’s faith and confidence in its city government,” Mennealy wrote in his request.

Finnigan said she has not changed her mind.

“They get the same answer the Sun Journal got earlier,” Finnigan said. “We can’t release it, at least not right now. That doesn’t mean it won’t ever be released, but that it cannot be made public right now.”

The city turned down the Sun Journal’s Nov. 20 request for access to the full report, saying the city is legally prohibited from releasing it because it contains information that could lead to disciplinary action. Only Finnigan and Police Chief Richard Small have had access to the 80-page report. City councilors have not seen the report, either.

“If we can’t look at it, who can?” Mennealy asked. “As councilors we are required to consider labor negotiations. How can this report be that different?”

Mayor Guay was pulled over and given a roadside sobriety test on Aug. 4 after a tense City Council labor discussion with police officers. Officers said Guay failed that test, but a Breathalyzer test later that evening 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 summation of the report on Nov. 19, detailing her opinion of what it said.

Finnigan said officers urging the report’s release doesn’t change things, either. Union President Chad Syphers, who said he was interviewed as part of the investigation, said he and other officers were willing to waive all claims against the city in an effort to get the report released.

“They can’t waive their rights like that, to my understanding,” Finnigan said. “I don’t think it changes a thing.”

staylor@sunjournal.com

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