Both councilors apologized at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Both councilors apologized at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Both councilors apologized at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Two Lewiston City Councilors have been censured over communications with a city employee through a Signal group chat.
The council voted Tuesday to censure Councilors Joshua Nagine and Scott Harriman 6-0. Both councilors can still vote and speak at meetings.
City officials say during a recent investigation into an unnamed city employee, it came to light that Councilors Nagine and Harriman were communicating through the messaging app Signal, in a thread set to automatically delete messages after a period of time.
A new report from the city’s attorney details the findings of their investigation into the matter. The report says Nagine had several text exchanges with the unnamed employee, Harriman with a handful. In the report, both councilors say it was the unnamed employee who suggested using Signal.
“In the course of a recent employee investigation, it came to light that one or more councilors had communicated with this employee using tools and methods designed to evade (Freedom of Access),” Mayor Carl Sheline said in a statement. “In my time as mayor, there has never been a clearer example of wrongdoing by those who knew what’s right.”
Following a council-directed inquiry into the matter, the council then voted to censure both men for “for failure to adhere to the requirements of Maine law and the Council’s goal of transparency.”
Nagine apologized for the incident and acknowledged his responsibility.
“I accept any proposed actions by the Council, including censure, as Maine FOAA law is clear on requirements around documenting written communication and will certainly take steps to avoid any issue such as this in the future,” he said in a statement. “I realize that there are still questions, and fully support the release of the inquiry to the public. I apologize to my colleagues and constituents for any concerns about transparency in government that my actions caused.”
Harriman also apologized for the incident and says he has taken steps to ensure this does not happen again.
“Earlier this summer, a Lewiston resident reached out to me with concerns they had about the general direction of the police department,” Harriman said in a statement. “They initiated a text message conversation on Signal, a messaging app that I had on my phone. I did not realize that they also set the parameters of our chat to cause the messages to disappear after a period of time. I should have checked.”
Yet Harriman also called this investigation an “intimidation tactic.”
“I don’t know how to interpret sitting city councilors being investigated by the law enforcement agency overseen by city administration as anything but an intimidation tactic,” he said. “This is especially true given that I have been open about my frustrations with leadership at the police department, as has another city councilor. To be clear, I’m not excusing my failure to retain these messages. It is my responsibility as an elected official to retain copies of all written communication relating to that role so it can be reviewed by any member of the public who requests it.”
This is not the first time Lewiston City Councilors have been accused of FOAA violations.
Both Harriman and Nagine are up for re-election this November.
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