AUBURN – A city ethics review panel should weigh in on Councilor Kelly Matzen’s support of a Great Falls Plaza parking garage this week.

The Auburn Ethics Panel interviewed three city councilors, City Manager Pat Finnigan and Assistant City Manager Mark Adams Friday morning as part of its investigation of the February vote.

The Ethics Panel is expected to meet again at 7:30 a.m. Friday, July 23, in the Auburn City Building. City Clerk Mary Lou Magno said the group is expected to offer its decision then.

“They wanted more time to deliberate, on their own,” Magno said Monday.

Councilors Bob Mennealy and Belinda Gerry charge that Councilor Kelly Matzen had a business involvement in the decision and should not have voted.

Matzen was one of five councilors who voted in favor of the city’s borrowing $5 million in March to build a 400-space parking garage in Great Falls Plaza. Mennealy and Gerry challenged his vote and asked the panel to review it.

The law firm of Trafton and Matzen, in which Matzen is a partner, lists Pasquale Maiorino as an associate. Maiorino is also a partner of developer Tom Platz, who hopes to build an office complex near the Great Falls garage.

The Ethics Panel was created by city ordinance in 1994, Magno said. It can give an advisory opinion to the City Council about whether Matzen had an “actual, potential or reasonably perceived” conflict of interest. The opinion is not legally binding, however, and would have to be adopted by the City Council.