WATERVILLE MAINE OR SAINT JOHN NEW BRUNSWICK????

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Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Waterville mayor angered by oil decision

By AMY CALDER
Staff Writer

2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

WATERVILLE -- Mayor Paul R. LePage on Tuesday night expressed outrage
that city councilors in his absence two weeks ago voted to approve a
three-year settlement with Irving Oil Co. without his knowledge.
LePage directed his anger at City Administrator Michael J. Roy, whom he
said placed the Irving item on the agenda for consideration at the
April 18 council meeting without his or Council Chairman Dana W. Sennett's
knowledge.

"The city administrator, without the mayor, made a policy decision and
I think it's bad -- it's terrible," LePage said.

LePage made the comments after Tuesday's council meeting, at which
LePage, in a surprise move, asked that councilors waive cloture and bring
up an item that was not on the agenda.

The item turned out to be a request to reconsider a decision councilors
made April 18 -- while LePage, Sennett and Councilor Donald N. Dufour,
D-Ward 5, were on vacation -- to approve a three-year contract with
Irving designed to give the city some of the oil owed it by the dealer,
P.P.C.O.M.

Councilors voted 4-3 Tuesday night not to waive cloture to reconsider
the Irving item, with Sennett, Dufour and Councilor Charles "Fred"
Stubbert Jr., voting to waive cloture and councilors Henry Beck, D-Ward 2,
Rosemary J. Winslow, D-Ward 3, Thomas R.W. Longstaff, D-Ward 6, and
Stephen R. Aucoin, D-Ward 7, opposing the move.

P.P.C.O.M. is an Oakland oil dealer now in bankruptcy that owes more
than $17 million to creditors who claim the company did not make good on
payments or delivery of fuel, including heating oil, gasoline and
diesel. Irving, P.P.C.O.M.'s supplier, is the largest creditor. Irving is
proposing to split 160,000 gallons of heating oil between 12 creditors
who hired an attorney to represent them. As part of the deal, the
creditors are obliged to buy all their heating oil from Irving during the next
three years.

LePage said Tuesday that he opposes the deal.

"It's a bad deal -- it's an enormously bad deal because you're locked
into a three-year contract. We have to buy our oil from Irving for three
years. This was put on the (April 18) agenda without my knowledge."

LePage, Sennett and Roy regularly meet the Wednesday before every
council meeting to set the agenda for each meeting. Both LePage and Sennett
said they did so before they went on vacation and decided not to place
the Irving item on the agenda, and that Roy placed it on the agenda
after they left for vacation.

LePage said the decision to place it on the agenda is a policy matter,
not an administrative one, and Roy's doing so was inappropriate.

"If you read the charter right now, the city administrator deals with
day-to-day operations; he is not is charge of putting things that are
policy items on the agenda without the council chairman or the mayor's
knowledge. It was put on after we left. Dana and I talked about it and we
decided it wasn't going to go on."

Roy, who disputed the claim that he did anything inappropriate, sent a
memo to councilors before the April 18 council vote, saying the
proposed settlement offered the best hope of getting some oil at no additional
cost. The creditors already had spent $30,000 in legal fees on the
issue, he wrote.

"Even though we will be committed to buying from Irving for three
years, the price of oil and transportation costs that they have offered
should remain very competitive," the memo states.

He told councilors at the April 18 meeting that the proposed settlement
was the best the city could get at the time.

Roy after Tuesday's meeting said support for the 12 organizations is
important to the settlement.

"Out of 12 organizations, if one or two pull out, the whole deal could
collapse for everyone else," he said.

The rift between LePage and Roy comes as a surprise in a relationship
that has been apparently mutually supportive.

LePage has been very vocal in his praise of Roy, whom he brought to the
city nearly 1 1/2 years ago from Oakland, where he was town manager.

After the discussion after the council meeting, LePage suggested he and
Roy go to the mayor's office downstairs to talk, which they did.

Amy Calder -- 861-9247

acalder@centralmaine.com