Bangor Ethics Board approves advisory opinion on Councilor Mallar

[4:42] John Eddy King III: Okay, good evening everyone. Like that's going well. This is a meeting for the Board of Ethics. We are in Council Chambers at 5 30, 5 31 on April 16th, 2026. We're working from an agenda this evening, a bit of a bit of a quick one, but get some work done nonetheless. First up, as always, are the introductions. No one remotely this evening into Council Chambers. Member Mark Eastman, number John King, Cody Silkener, legal counsel Ed Gould. I am member Shane Leonard, also the chair. We have next up on our agenda the approval of the meeting minutes from our last March 31st meeting. If everybody either had a chance to look over them before or see if there's anything they wanted to make the change to if they look fine is there a motion to approve second motion to approve by member king seconded by member silver these are all called votes will prove the meeting minutes yes john yep yes i'm a yes that's unanimous meeting minutes are approved next up also The approval of the written findings of fact, so known as the advisory opinion with respect to Council order to five dash to a two, which was city Councilor Wayne malice actions during the August 14 2025 Historic Preservation Commission meeting. Again, if you had a chance to look at the electronic packet. Of, I'll go last. I saw one small thing to fix in here, but wondered if anyone else had any issues or thoughts, and it was open for discussions with that as well. Give it a good read over again. [9:23] Shane Leonard: Section 13 with the respect to Council of the lives spot where he could remember member, shouldn't that be couldn't? You know, page four or three of part 13. Three does he said that he asked the chair when he could look that part and if my hand out he's lost my spot. That's great, so that's right here. When I asked if he discussed the subject matter of the meeting with her, he indicated he that he could remember. Should [10:19] Ellen Teresa Celli: that be could not? It should be could not. Yeah, he indicated right not that he could remember. [10:25] Marc Eastman: Yeah, that's okay. That's a good catch, and I [10:33] Shane Leonard: may have missed it, but one of the parts that was crucial to decision making was where he said he may have said it. Do [10:48] Marc Eastman: you know where that was from? Okay, I don't see it. I don't know if that's, yeah, I did include a reference. I'll [10:59] Stephen Brough: try and find where he said that. I don't dispute anything that was said tonight. Yeah, it was in [11:06] John Eddy King III: part one. It was lack of memory. Councillor Mallar could not dispute statements of Edith Dyer that he told the commissioners that Mr. Barron's application should be heard. [11:16] Shane Leonard: I don't know what that says. The quote was from him saying that he may have said it, I may have, when asked by Shane, yeah. [11:37] James Londis McGee: I think that, I think the closest thing is right after in that same part in 13 that you're looking at, before it says he may have indicated that he thought the commission was not the correct venue you to hear Mr. Parent's application, but he did not remember, so yeah, I mean he said he may have. [11:57] John Eddy King III: said that 's a crucial part to the decision making that we had yeah you know i 'm not in his head i don't know i know that at different times when we were leading to him and he had the ability to speak he said he couldn't he said he wouldn't dispute this couldn't remember that did remember this you know it must be tricky to try to navigate how to write the situation back and forth is there anything that you want that you think specifically should be cleared up or is it okay i know what You're, I know what you're saying. I'm just not sure if you're happy with it represented the way it is here, or if we should talk about some edit. [12:42] Shane Leonard: It, or is it anyway, what does the council think? Important thing, I. [12:49] John Eddy King III: Think I see a point. I think there's sometimes where he says he remembered doing this but didn't remember doing that. [12:53] Shane Leonard: You know, I may have said it, yeah, and that was one of the crucial aspects, the. [13:02] John Eddy King III: Well, go ahead guys. I don't, I don't want to keep talking if there was anything. [13:07] Ellen Teresa Celli: Think as well if it's a fact to not have that included, do we think? I guess it's not, I mean. [13:19] Shane Leonard: I'm talking just for clarity, it is, because that was something that we, okay, we discussed during discussion part. [13:31] Stephen Brough: So there are a couple ways you can look at it. I mean, I think that by including in this particular factual finding it saying that I'm sorry, well, between number 13 and then section 2 subsection 13 and section 3 subsection 1, you have statements that he may have talked about the commission not being the correct venue, and then in three section one the statement that he wouldn't dispute the statements of Edith Dyer on that same issue, so you've got it covered in general, but the question, I mean, you. Guys, you guys are fact finders here, so the question is whether or not you want to be more specific, which of course you can if you want, yeah, what. [14:37] John Eddy King III: Do you think, Mark? No. [14:41] James Londis McGee: I mean, I kind of feel don't like it. [14:45] Ellen Teresa Celli: It's, yeah. [14:52] John Eddy King III: I think what you guys are saying and I get your point too John I feel like if someone read through this and didn't watch our meeting would they appropriately understand that the board felt in their decision making that due to the testimony excuse me due to the public speaking and the public speaking of others and you know it does it does sort of like swing back and forth a bit I was initially okay with it but I'm open to the idea that if someone wasn't you know it's amenable of course with the board deciding but from a legal standpoint [15:33] Stephen Brough: what you need is to have findings of fact that support the conclusions of law lot and actually the section we're talking about is under the records section right so legally to withstand scrutiny in court you just have to have findings that are sufficient to support the legal conclusions okay I mean obviously we're we're not going to yeah I mean we're not we're not going to make a transcript of everything that happened so yeah okay [16:19] Shane Leonard: okay as you [16:23] John Eddy King III: and again as you're all going through it if you if you see something springing up I [16:41] James Londis McGee: think also that I mean the general idea of whatever is not exactly in there is also kind of covered by 7 where it says that the board finds that he made comments to at least one commissioner regarding this I mean like he finds that he did right so we believe he did yeah and you [17:09] Stephen Brough: know you go through a public hearing like that you're going to get contradictory statements from different witnesses and then you as a board have to sift through that and decide like okay we think this happened we think this didn't happen and you don't have to recite everything that came out you just have to make your findings which then have to be supported by something in the record and the record is more than just this written document I mean the record is all the documents the record is the reporting right of the public hearing yep so okay and actually I said look at this in 13 where the sentence reads when asked if he discussed the subject matter of the meeting her being counselor quinn he indicated not that he could remember all right okay so, the other nod is... [18:22] Marc Eastman: I skipped over that nod. [18:23] Stephen Brough: Well, I mean, it could have been... I could have put that nod in a different location. It would have been a little clearer. [18:34] Shane Leonard: That's not a big problem. I don't have anything else other than my name's in there a lot. [18:41] John Eddy King III: You know, you made functions and you're in there. [19:03] Ellen Teresa Celli: Can I ask a clarifying question? Section three, subsections 10 through 13, are those just in their first clarification? Those [19:17] Stephen Brough: are there because the entire section is both findings of fact and conclusions of law, so 10 through 13 are basically just restatements of what the ordinance is. Okay, perfect. I was the, I was just curious again. [19:34] Marc Eastman: Did you go into the conclusions decision? Yeah, and those are the specific [19:42] Stephen Brough: ordinance sections that were referenced in the council order, so [19:49] James Londis McGee: I have kind of like a weird question. Not that I particularly want to go all through everything again, but you know, like where you have like 0.8 here and it's talking about how, you know, the whole affirmatively disclaim whether or not you're acting as City Council or not, and I feel like, I guess maybe we didn't exactly like talk about this and that it would be part of what our findings of fact are anyway, but I feel like in the findings of fact, once you have like the board finds that he made comments, you know, to the commissioners regarding the subject matter of the pending application, I [20:47] Shane Leonard: mean, I feel like why do you [20:49] James Londis McGee: I did that like negates the distinction existing? I mean, if that makes any sense. [21:00] Stephen Brough: No, I understand what you're saying. The reason that eight is in there is because 33 13.1 on B and C have specific, B is a prohibition on what a counselor can do, and C is a duty which the counselor has to affirm. Perfectly right, it's an affirmative duty on the part of the council. So in order to address whether or not there was a violation of B and C, you have to make factual findings, number one, on subsection B, whether or not he was explicitly or implicitly representing himself as a city councilor, or whether it was ambiguous. And then you also have to make findings to address C, whether or not if it was ambiguous, he did anything to issue a disclaimer. So that's why, that's why eight takes a step further than seven, right? No, [22:28] James Londis McGee: and I mean, I get that, but [22:34] Ellen Teresa Celli: I mean, it's okay, Don. [22:40] John Eddy King III: Did you have anything else that was in there? Maybe Cody curious as to [22:46] Ellen Teresa Celli: what you noted, it's very small. Did you have anything beyond that? Probably misspelling. [22:58] John Eddy King III: Section one, the last paragraph. Although the board conducted a public hearing this matter on March 31st with members Shane Leonard, Cody Sultan, Mark Eastman, and Stephen Bro, John King is not mentioned. He is here. Yes, I mentioned enough in here. Yeah, no, we need eat one more and you get a set of steak knives. And really that's, I've gone back and forth with that a couple times about, you know, things in here that I thought typo or whatever, and that wasn't really, that was either in the original one and we just missed it or it just got caught up in the last version. But that's the, I mean, again, for the record, we were all here, and if it's not mentioned here, I was making motions later. It's small enough, but it's also self-referential. But other than that, 's the only thing that I have as well. [23:49] Stephen Brough: So here's what I would recommend. If you are going to adopt the findings effect and conclusions law that somebody moved to do that, would the amendment that paragraph be added to include the attendance of member King and then vote on these findings as amended? And then what I'll do is tomorrow morning I'll just drop his name in. Yep. Yeah, and that way you don't have to come back and vote on it again, right? We'll cover it. Yes, time. Okay, if there [24:26] John Eddy King III: isn't anything else about this, if there was a motion made to approve the amended findings of fact and seconded, we could vote on that. Yeah, I motion to approve the amendment. Second and seconded it by John. Roll call vote. I'll go backwards this time. Cody? Yes. Yes. John? Yes. Mark? Yes. I'm a yes. That's unanimous. Nailed. But is there any, is there any new business that the board should, there's no old business left. This was the last, this was the last thing. I didn't think of anything. That's, that's that. So at this stage, with the approval of the amended minutes, you make the change, send them to us in the morning. It's not every that different. And then that's that. So take a second to thank you for all your help and all the guidance through all the things that you've been doing for months. If the need arises again, you're very helpful. Thank you very much. And Mr. Warren, thanks for all your help, city too. We did a pretty good job navigating through everything with new members, new procedural rules. One of the things that we are going to be doing probably the next time we meet potentially is in our meeting some form of feedback on everything that we did, how that we did it. Is there stuff in the procedural rules that we can maybe adapt or fix or are there things that aren't in there that we want? Not just things that are in there that we want to take out. Yeah, well this meeting's adjourned. Thank you. Hey, look at that. I was dragging it out a bit to make that happened. [26:27] Marc Eastman: They're waiting for you. Yeah, as soon as you said adjourned right.