Councilors Clash Over Pier Proposals
“The rules exist in his (Cloutier’s) head,”says Councilor Donoghue

East End City Councilor Kevin Donoghue has accused fellow City Councilors Jim Cloutier and Jill Duson of disposing of the rules when it comes to deciding which of two Maine State Pier proposals the City’s Community Development Committee will recommend to the City Council.

In an op-ed piece in the June 12th edition of the Portland Press Herald, Donoghue says that the City’s bidding process required that finished bids be submitted by February 22, 2007, which they were, but the bid by Ocean Properties has been entirely redone, four months after the deadline, which Donoghue says is against the rules, and unfair to the other bidder.

Donoghue says that the current process affords “an unprecedented degree of latitude to the politically-favored” Ocean Properties group. Among those on the Ocean Properties team are former Senator George Mitchell and Bob Baldacci, brother of Maine Governor John Baldacci.

Donoghue says that no mention or rules exist for what Cloutier calls a “Concept RFP” because “those rules exist inside his head.”