The panel met Friday to consider a possible conflict of interest on the City Council.
AUBURN – One of three members of the city’s Ethics Panel stepped down Friday, citing a possible conflict of interest.
The panel met to discuss an alleged conflict of interest on the part of City Councilor Kelly Matzen and his vote on a $5 million bond to build a Great Falls Plaza parking garage earlier this month.
But almost as soon as the three-member group sat down Friday morning, member Earl Austin recused himself because he and Matzen are friends, he said.
“I call it a gut feeling,” Austin said. “I find it hard to believe that Kelly Matzen would be involved in anything unethical.”
The two remaining members, attorney Peter Garcia of Skelton, Taintor and Abbott, and the Rev. Paul Martz, pastor of the High Street Congregational Church, said they needed at least one more person on the panel before they began discussions. They directed City Clerk Mary Lou Magno to ask the City Council to appoint two alternate members. Then the panel ended its meeting.
“It doesn’t make any sense to get started, knowing we’ll have to bring someone else up to speed,” Garcia said.
Councilors Bob Mennealy and Belinda Gerry collected 64 signatures asking the panel to review Matzen’s vote.
Matzen, a lawyer with the firm of Trafton and Matzen, lists developer Pasquale Maiorino as “of counsel” on the firm’s Yellow Pages advertisement. That means that Maiorino acts as an associate of Matzen’s firm. Maiorino is also a partner of developer Tom Platz, who intends to build at least one office building in Great Falls Plaza.
Mennealy alleges that a planned parking garage in the plaza near Platz’s buildings would be a direct benefit to him and his partners.
Mennealy questioned Matzen’s vote on a $5 million bond issue to build the garage both times it came before the council. Both times the vote passed by a 5-2 margin, with Mennealy and Gerry voting against it and Matzen supporting it.
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.
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