BETHEL – Town Manager Scott Cole breathed a bit easier Thursday night.

He still had a job following the Board of Selectmen’s two-hour executive session.

The closed-door meeting stemmed from publication Thursday of a front-page story in the Bethel Citizen.

The story, by Citizen editor/writer Michael Daniels, elaborates on a secretly-recorded conversation between Cole and a Bethel couple in the town manager’s office in late March. Cole was unaware that his comments were being taped.

Derogatory statements – excerpted from the taping and attributed to Cole – were about some students at Telstar High School and former members of the Bethel Police Department under former Chief Darren Tripp.

Cole fired Tripp in February for failing to maintain contact with the Oxford County radio dispatch center, and for failing to respond from inside the police station for 12 minutes on Dec. 2 to repeated attempts by dispatchers to alert him about an armed robbery.

Selectmen, voting 3-2, upheld Cole’s decision on March 11 at Tripp’s termination appeal hearing.

Daniels said the Citizen stood by his story.

“This was a public official speaking on the public dime, expressing his views of parts of the community, and we feel it is appropriate for the public to know what their officials say, and we certainly stand by the accuracy,” Daniels said Thursday afternoon.

“So we held our nose and published it.”

Daniels also wrote an editorial about the derogatory statements, saying, “The Citizen played no role in the making of the tape” about which his story was based.

He ended the editorial saying, “It might be time now for the present town manager to be down the road.”

Town manager responds

Earlier Thursday, Cole issued an 850-word statement to selectmen, offering his side to the story and Daniels’ subsequent editorial.

Cole said the situation he now finds himself in, is his own fault.

“My problems are my candidness and gullibility. I always take people at their face value.

“I see the best in all people, and that’s always been my downfall, and, if this proves to be a downfall, this will be it,” he added.

He accused Daniels of presenting “biased coverage via the Bethel Citizen with the clear intent of destroying me.”

“It’s immoral and unethical, but that’s the mode of operation for some parties in Bethel. I don’t know the legalities of surreptitious taping without a person’s consent,” he said.

Chuck Dow, spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, and Portland attorney Jonathan Piper, said they did not believe that clandestine taping of a conversation – in this instance – was illegal in Maine.

“But just because it’s not illegal, doesn’t mean that it’s not sleazy. It bears on a person’s character,” Piper said Thursday.

And, Piper added, the law wouldn’t consider the Citizen’s publishing of Cole’s taped statements to be defamatory, unless the statements were mis-characterized.

Cole alleged that Tripp had knowledge of the couple’s visit beforehand and its purpose.

For his part Tripp denies Cole’s charges that he had something to do with the taping.

“I’m not going out of my way to stir up trouble. He said the stuff. I’m familiar with the couple – we’re not friends – from matters of the police department. Everybody’s got an opinion. They [the couple] didn’t come to me. I read the [Citizen] article for the first time at 8 o’clock this morning. I’m just a taxpaying citizen of Bethel who is running for office,” Tripp said.

“I talked to one of the selectmen today and I had no foreknowledge that the taping took place. I only found out about it a week or so after it happened.

“I’d like to see this clear evidence that these people had been in contact’ with me and Haley. He needs to show it to me, because Haley and I had no knowledge about it,” Tripp added.

Matter of timing

Cole said he suspected that timing was behind the motivation to release the tape and/or its transcripts to The Citizen.

On Monday, June 7, selectmen are to conduct their annual job performance evaluation of Cole – who has been the town manager for nearly five years. Municipal elections and the annual town meeting, respectively, follow on Tuesday, June 8, and Wednesday, June 9.

“The motivation of the tapers is to somehow bolster Darren Tripp by taking me down. But my termination of Darren was the right thing to do. It had to happen, and it did happen, and the police department is better off for it,” Cole added.

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