Union officials have filed a grievance, claiming the city is trying to intimidate its officers.
By Scott Taylor
Staff Writer

AUBURN – The police chief is conducting his own investigation into the Aug. 4 arrest of Mayor Norm Guay.

Police Chief Richard Small will look into his department’s actions leading up to and after the mayor’s drunken-driving arrest. City Manager Pat Finnigan said Small’s investigation is different than the one performed by Portland attorneys in August.

“They both have very different tracks, with very different purposes,” Finnigan said. “The first was to determine what actually happened on Aug. 4. Now that the chief has read that report, he has some concerns of his own. He’s looking at those concerns now.”

Police union officials reacted harshly to the second investigation. Attorney John Richardson, who represents the Auburn police union, said the city was trying to harass and intimidate its officers.

“I can’t think of any other reason to go over this ground again other than to retaliate against officers for their alleged conduct,” Richardson said.

Richardson said the union has filed a grievance with the state aimed at getting the second investigation stopped.

“They interviewed 17 officers for that report,” Richardson said of the first probe. “The investigation was very intense and very involved. I can’t think of a reason for another investigation other than to intimidate employees.”

Guay was pulled over and given a roadside sobriety test on Aug. 4 after a tense City Council labor discussion with police officers.

Guay failed the field test, according to police, but a Breathalyzer test later that evening showed his blood-alcohol content at 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.

She released a five-page summary of the report on Nov. 19, detailing her opinion of what it said. Finnigan has said the full report contains information that could lead to discipline, and has refused to release it to the press, the public or to city councilors.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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