BATH

Convinced the issue isn’t going away, the City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to appoint an investigator to probe the city’s sale of a public building to a private developer.

The building at 9 Park St. — assessed at $6.5 million — was sold to Phippsburg developer Robert Smith for $799,000. The council approved the sale unanimously in a public vote on April 17, but consideration of the sale had taken place largely beyond public view.

City Councilor David Sinclair also moved Wednesday to allow confidential material considered during executive session to be waived for the purpose of councilors speaking to the investigator.

Sinclair asked City Solicitor Roger Therriault if that would be legal. Therriault said he would consider it and issue a memo by the next council meeting.

Councilors on July 24 said they had spoken for the last time on the hospital sale and declared they would not answer questions about it from the public.

But on Wednesday, the first council meeting since the July 24 special meeting, they faced an even larger crowd of unhappy citizens.

During the public comment period, Rabyrne Hutton, the only citizen on the Bath Economic Development Committee who does not serve on the City Council, resigned in protest over proposed new rules governing Bath’s future sales of public property.

Hutton said the document was supposed to change how such sales are done but would do nothing to keep the problem from happening again.

The rules were worked out in the Economic Development Committee and amended several times before being approved.

One rule — requiring the City Council to go into executive session to determine whether there was cause for executive session on the details of a deal — was stricken. Instead, a proposal was adopted to make the initial executive session optional, at the discretion of the Council.

The City Council wanted a provision making an independent appraisal the normal course of affairs while providing the ability to waive it when one is clearly not needed. That measure was approved unanimously.

Sinclair, Ward 6 councilor, told residents Wednesday his motion for an independent investigation was meant “to address the 800-pound gorilla in the room.”

“It is clear that what we have done so far is insufficient to regain the trust of the citizens,” Sinclair said.

He then moved that an independent investigator be engaged to interview everyone and be given access to all the documents available, to look at how the sale was completed, and provide a final document that would be made public.

Councilor-at-large Steve Brackett said, “The situation that we find ourselves in is unfortunate. We need to do something, and I would support that motion.”

All the councilors supported the motion; it passed unanimously.

Residents who were the most critical about the sale thanked the council.

“I think you’re going in the right direction,” said Larry Scott, a Bath resident critical of the sale.

Scott asked to be able to submit the 100 or so pages of information he had accumulated on the issue, and was told he would be able to do so — but only, Chairman Bernie Wyman warned, “if it is true.”

“I wouldn’t provide him with any information that wasn’t true,” Scott said.

Jim Strickland said he was concerned the final report may “give us only the information that has already been available,” referring to the secrecy of the executive session material.

Mike Wischkaemper asked Wyman to “give Mr. Sinclair my thanks. This is a terrific step forward.”

Wischkaemper and Robert Westlake, however, had misgivings about the new “working rules” for public input, which limits how citizens can interact with councilors and the number of times they can rise to speak on an issue.

Councilor Meadow Merrill suggested that the investigator appointed to probe the April 17 sale should not be someone who had done work for the city.

“It could be inappropriate,” she said.

ghamilton@timesrecord.com