Peter Velanzon took citizen activism to a new level this year when he appealed to the Maine State Legislature for help in guaranteeing his voice could be heard in municipal meetings in Waldo, where he resided until recently.
Velanzon told The Maine Wire that public comment in town meetings kept getting curtailed or suspended every time he tried to be heard on a host of issues over the past decade. In 2014, he started filming municipal proceedings in the Waldo County town of 795 souls and when then former first selectwoman Kathy Littlefield learned he’d been doing so, she began seeking ways to limit his ability to speak, Velanzon said.
The town of Waldo is “a tyrannical government agency,” Velanzon told The Maine Wire in explaining what led him to seek a law ensuring citizens could speak at meetings.
Littlefield, who has since retired and been awarded an honor from the state for being Maine’s longest-serving public official having worked for the town of Waldo for a half century, disagrees with Velanzon’s assertion.
“We always tried to treat him with the utmost courtesy,” Littlefield said in an interview with The Maine Wire regarding Velanzon’s case. At the same time, she suggested he made the town’s work more complicated. “He did everything he could to scramble the process,” she lamented, “it could get ridiculous.”
Velanzon presents the law he pushed for to the Waldo select board
Velanzon says that when it would come his turn to speak at meetings, he’d be told that the time for public comment had run out. That is why he went to his state representative, Benjamin Hymes (R-Waldo), to get a legislative remedy.
Rep. Hymes introduced HP 713, An Act to Reinforce Free Speech at Town Meetings by Allowing Opportunity for Public Comment, which remarkably passed by a unanimous vote earlier this year. Two weeks ago, Velanzon brought a copy of the bill to a Waldo selectmen’s meeting to present it. At that meeting, current first selectman Ian Stover told him they would review it.
“The board questioned whether the law referred to the select board meetings as it is written ‘town meetings’ which is what we call our annual town meetings,” Stover told The Maine Wire. He said they are continuing to consider the matter.
Hymes said the law’s intent is to cover all municipal meetings. If there is any misunderstanding or lack of clarity, he told The Maine Wire, he would have the legislature’s Local and State Government Committee staff address the language when they return to session.
Town treasurer Kellie Jacobs said Waldo has referred the matter to the Maine Municipal Association for review. The select board is scheduled to meet again at 5 p.m. on Monday, August 25. “Public comment” is on the agenda as it is posted on the town’s website.
