Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine) drummed up controversy one year ago last December when Mainers struggled through a devastating winter storm but the state’s Chief Executive and her staff remained incommunicado for several days.
Following the controversy, the Maine Wire submitted multiple Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) requests for Gov. Mills’ schedule during the time of the storm that raged between December 17-18, causing severe flooding and leaving nearly half of the state without power.
What began as an effort to answer questions Mainers were asking about the governor’s whereabouts during the storms quickly became an exhibition of the weaknesses of Maine’s government transparency law when politicians don’t want embarrassing information to reach the public.
After sending an initial response on December 19 and asking for $500 to pay for the retrieval and compilation of documents, the governor’s office began ignoring the request and stopped responding to follow up inquiries.
It was not until the Maine Wire filed a lawsuit against the Mills Administration in July for its failure to comply with the request that the administration finally handed over the heavily redacted documents, along with a request that we drop the lawsuit.
At the same time the Maine Wire was fighting for records from the governor’s office, we had sought similar records from the Maine State Police’s Executive Protection Unit, the detail that provides the governor’s security and accompanies her during out of state travel.
After receiving those heavily redacted records early this summer, the Maine Wire spent several weeks fighting to have redactions lifted — to no avail.
While the schedule records the governor’s office turned over (after we filed the lawsuit) did not provide any information about why the governor was AWOL during the storms, the Maine State Police records did.
[RELATED: Maine Wire Sues Janet Mills for Violating Freedom of Access Act…]
Now, exactly one year after the storm, the Maine Wire can reveal what was on Mills’ docket while she remained AWOL and her state suffered.
The documents show that Mills was set to attend an evening fundraising gala in Boston on Monday, December 18, as the storms began to peak.
MSP records before and after several weeks spent fighting to lift redactions:
The Mills administration redacted much of the information on the Boston event, including six fully redacted pages of the Maine State Police’s trip report on Mills’s travel plans.
The event was set to relaunch the Democratic Governor’s Association (DGA) Women Governors Fund, hoping to raise between $100,000 and $200,000, with approximately 40 people set to attend.
Although the Mills Administration redacted the name of the governor hosting the event, all other evidence points to Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) as the hostess.
She was named chair of the Women’s Governors Fund just weeks before the event, and the event was held in her home state.
Mills was set to be in Boston from 5:30 to 7:00 PM, as Maine would begin to experience the most severe power outages in decades.
During the storms and the ensuing fallout, the governor was heavily criticized on social media for being absent from public view, including by typically reserved TV news reporters.
A spokesperson from the governor’s office, Ben Goodman, became infamous for tweeting his exasperation at seeing Cadbury Creme Eggs in a store before Christmas in the aftermath of the storm instead of addressing the crisis as Mills’ press secretary.
Goodman, several months later and after we successfully sued the Mills Administration for public records, told the Maine Wire that Mills did not end up attending the ritzy private fundraiser. According to Goodman, the governor canceled her participation in the event and returned to Maine due to the storms.
“The Governor was in Maine during the storms,” said Goodman.
That answer implies that Mills was on her way to the fundraiser when she decided to return, but the fundraiser was set for the evening of December 18, and the storm had been raging since the previous day.
Nothing in the provided documents corroborates the claim that Mills returned to Maine and did not actually attend the fundraiser.
No internal communications show Mills or her staff canceling their trip to the event.
To the extent the Mills Administration turned over internal text messages related to these requests, they were redacted into oblivion — redactions the Maine State Police refused to lift.
The Maine Wire reached out to the DGA, asking if they could provide a list of attendees at the event, or at least confirm whether Mills was in attendance, but they did not respond.
If there isn’t anything incriminating about where she was they why all the redactions?
Could they be any more transparent?
And I’m ashamed and embarrassed at our state. The fact the State Police of all departments is in on Mills’ scams and favors is disgusting.
I was told mills was there and she was 1 of only a few non-poc allowed. I believe she was able to score an invite because she identified as a not so small, furry, woodland animal.
And Ted Cruz went to Mexico then blamed his daughter