OTISFIELD – The Otisfield Board of Selectmen voted Wednesday to adopt a new policy barring most town employees and volunteers from unfettered access to the Maine Municipal Association Web site.
Not everyone agrees on why. Selectman Tom Nurmi said Friday the town’s password for the Web site, which provides information on municipal government and government news, was being overused.
“Of course the more it’s used, the more the rates go up,” Nurmi said. While he admitted that towns pay a flat annual fee for municipal association membership, which includes Web site access, he said more online hits could cause the basic fee to rise.
The selectmen’s administrative assistant, Marianne Izzo-Morin, said Friday the policy was adopted because the selectmen felt the site access was abused, and because people used it to gather information but didn’t always fully understand what they had learned.
As far as resident Gary Tougas is concerned, the town has restricted access to the site because officials are afraid.
Tougas is a member of the Town Government Study Committee. When he joined last year, he said Friday, he was told the town relies on the Maine Municipal Association’s series of government manuals to dictate how business will be conducted.
Tougas applied for the right to use the association’s Web site and went online to download copies of the manuals. They have been used in the study committee’s review of what works and what doesn’t in Otisfield town government. Tougas said he has since raised questions about Otisfield’s manner of conducting business.
“In the process of digging, I found things that they didn’t want me to find,” Tougas said. “And I think the one that really tipped the scales was the junkyard stuff.”
Tougas said he learned through his research that the state junkyard law changed two years ago. While the town was reviewing junkyard applications in December and issuing permits Jan. 1, the state had backed up the permit deadline to Oct. 1, so that junkyards could be inspected by town officials before snow fell each year.
Tougas also pointed out that “last year, Lenny Adler, who was the chairman of the selectmen, had his signature on his own junkyard permit.” Tougas said that after questions of a conflict of interest were raised, Adler recused himself from the board during junkyard permit discussions.
These and other issues, Tougas feels, “have caused (the selectmen) to try and circle the wagons and cut off information.”
Selectmen Chairman Mark Cyr could not be reached for comment Friday. When asked the selectmen’s phone numbers, Marianne Izzo-Morin refused to give them and said the board has an unwritten policy against speaking with the press outside of meetings “because they have been misquoted.”
At a Maine Freedom of Access law forum Feb. 15, Cyr asked Maine Municipal Association attorney Michael Stultz whether the association could restrict access to information on its site. He complained that some people were creating difficulties for the board after misinterpreting state law.
Stultz explained that all Maine law is public information and is available through state government as well as the municipal association.
According to a copy of the new policy provided by Izzo-Morin, it is now “against town policy to share information, passwords, or allow access to the (municipal association) website with any other individual.” Failure to comply “will lead to immediate suspension of password and website privileges, dismissal from committee, and possible further disciplinary action up to an including prosecution.”
Tougas was barred from accessing the Web site March 7, before the town adopted the policy.
Nurmi said the policy already was in place, but had to be “reiterated.”
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