The Androscoggin River Alliance, which raised the issue of a conflict of interest with Darryl Brown, former commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, has submitted a letter to the attorney general asking whether the DEP illegally rushed through the site plan permit for the Oxford casino.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, the Androscoggin River Alliance requested DEP documents pertaining to Brown and Main-Land Development, the Livermore Falls company Brown owns and which wrote up the site plan for the Oxford casino.

The attorney general determined there was a potential conflict of interest and Brown resigned and became head of the State Planning Office.

Rob Lally, a Black Bear Entertainment investors and co-owner of Mt. Abram Ski Area, called the environmental group’s letter to the attorney general “a last-ditch effort” to stop the casino.

“We did nothing wrong,” Lally said Wednesday. “We hired the best consultants and engineers and lawyers in Maine to put forth the complete application.”

When Brown was director, DEP Deputy Director Patricia Aho delegated decisions concerning Main-Land permits to a panel of three division directors, writing that while not all three had to sign each permit, the decision to approve it had to be unanimous among the three men.

According to documentation the environmental group obtained, each panel member received copies of Main-Land Development applications for projects and approved them in several cases.

Steve Hinchman, a lawyer for the Androscoggin River Alliance, said that process broke down when the application for the Black Bear casino came through.

“There’s only one project where they don’t follow the delegation process,” Hinchman said. “That was the casino.”

Email records suggest only one of the panel members, Bryce Sproul, read the application and approved it on March 17. Sproul commented on a note reading, “Please RUSH!!” on the license review routing sheet. “This absolutely raises a great big red flag,” he wrote in an email.

On March 22, Aho sent another letter to the panel, which said that when two of the three panel members are not in the office, “a decision may be rendered by one of the individuals.”

“On March 22, they tried to fix the mistake by issuing a new delegation memo,” Hinchman said. Further, he said, Deputy Commissioner Aho was prohibited from being involved in Main-Land decisions.

Hinchman said his group has asked the attorney general to determine whether the March 17 signature and the March 22 memo were violations of conflict-of-interest statutes.

In a later message, Sproul wrote that the “rush” message was “based on the fact that the DEP site folks and the applicant have a reciprocal agreement to turn questions/information requests around within 24 hours.”

Hinchman said that message suggests the DEP gave Black Bear preferential treatment in the planning process. “Giving Black Bear expedited and preferential treatment, at a time when there are at least three other competing casinos in play creates a serious concern,” he said.

Lally said the group’s appeals are holding up casino work. “We have construction crews and engineers and people ready to get started on this project,” he said.

“Until we resolve this, we can’t go full speed ahead,” Lally said Wednesday. “Hopefully, we can resolve this and do our groundbreaking very soon,”

The site plan permit will go before the Board of Environmental Protection for an appeal Thursday afternoon.

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