Being elected to the city council in Lewiston doesn’t mean forfeiting the right to political activism, even if your chosen cause goes against the majority decision of your colleagues. It wouldn’t be a popular move among your peers, but it would be legal.

And the city council president, Tom Peters, has the law on his side.

Peters, one of two dissenting votes in the controversial firing of the city’s administrator, Jim Bennett, is an architect behind an upcoming private meeting regarding Lewiston governance. (It might be private, but it is not a secret: the meeting is Aug. 5, at 5:30, at the Ramada Inn.)

This involvement prompted questions from councilor Bob Reed, who described this meeting as having the air of a “lynch mob aimed at the current council.” Reed added, “It just feels slimy to me; I don’t know how else to describe it.”

One way would be disheartening – just the fact that there is this level of disagreement and tension among city councilors is indicative of their lack of harmony. As the barbs fly about Bennett, his termination/buyout and the subsequent rationales for it, it’s clear there’s no love lost on this council.

Lewiston is not being governed effectively when there are sitting councilors fomenting insurrection against the sitting council. It’s not slimy, but rather an appraisal of the sad state of affairs that the council’s inability to work together has created.

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