By Robert Lowell

rlowell@keepmecurrent.com

A Gorham police officer was reprimanded last summer following an investigation of domestic violence, a letter released by the town revealed on Tuesday.

Officer Mark Sanborn was identified as the officer in a letter on Aug. 25, 2014, from then-Gorham Police Chief Ronald Shepard. Sanborn, who joined the Gorham Police Department in 1998, had been placed on administrative leave and was reprimanded following an investigation. According to the letter, Shepard on July 3 served a temporary protection of abuse order that was initiated by Sanborn’s wife, Holly Sanborn.

The issue of domestic violence inside the department was cited in an independent report released Monday about the Gorham Police Department. Dacri Associates of Kennebunk, hired in February to assist the town in filling the police chief vacancy, prepared the study.

Town Manager David Cole on Tuesday released Shepard’s letter to Sanborn following a request by the American Journal.

Mark Sanborn, 38, is the brother of Gorham’s acting police chief, Lt. Christopher Sanborn, who was appointed by the Town Council.

Cole said on Tuesday that the acting chief was not involved in the investigation of his brother and that it was conducted by an external agency.

After a lengthy career in the Gorham Police Department, Shepard retired Nov. 4 and was elected to the Town Council. Shepard could not be reached by telephone calls to his home on Tuesday for comment about the police report.

Mark Sanborn was the school resource officer for Gorham elementary schools, but Cole said on Tuesday that he was re-assigned to patrol duty on March 18 or about two weeks ago.

“We put him on patrol because we’re short-handed,” Cole said.

School resource officers also teach in classrooms at Gorham schools, according to town information. Dennis Libby, chairman of the Gorham School Committee, declined comment about the issue.

Shepard said in his letter that he had reviewed findings of the investigation and concluded in his letter to Mark Sanborn, “You did engage in conduct which violated Gorham Police Department Standard Operating Procedure … by attempting to place or placing another in fear of bodily injury through any course of conduct including but not limited to, threatening, harassing or tormenting behavior.”

Shepard’s letter also said that he violated department rules on professional conduct and responsibility, which requires that “employees shall conduct themselves in their private and professional lives in such a manner as to avoid bringing themselves or the department into disrepute, discredit or a state of embarrassment.”

According to court documents filed in Bridgton District Court, Shepard had served Mark Sanborn with the temporary protection from abuse order on July 3, at 270 Main St., the address of Gorham’s Public Safety Building.

In court documents dated July 3, Holly Sanborn stated that she and her two children “were in immediate need of protection from my husband Mark Sanborn.” She further said in the statement, “I am terrified of him, of leaving him for fear of retaliation and believe that if he has contact with the children he will hurt them physically and emotionally.”

Shepard’s reprimand letter to Mark Sanborn also said, “I strongly recommend that you continue with the individual counseling stipulated in the interim order agreed to by you on Aug. 6, 2014.”

The complaint was dismissed Aug. 6, according a clerk in the Bridgton courthouse.

In an email response on July 24 to the American Journal, Superintendent Ted Sharp said Mark Sanborn would be the K-5 resource officer when school resumed. It’s unclear when the School Department might have learned about the temporary protection of abuse order, but Cole doubted that the School Department knew about the matter.

Sharp did not respond to an email Wednesday with questions about the school resource officer position.

Two days before school resumed last year, Sharp, 71, who will step down in June, announced his retirement plans on Aug. 25, coincidently the same date as the reprimand letter to Mark Sanborn. Shepard, 66, had announced his retirement on July 31.

The Town Council in October appointed Lt. Christopher Sanborn as acting chief effective Nov. 4, Shepard’s retirement date.

Then, the Gorham Town Council on Feb. 3 unanimously extended Christopher Sanborn’s appointment until a new chief is named. The Town Council, in a separate move, authorized spending $15,000 to hire a firm, Dacri Associates of Kennebunk, to assist the town in filling the police chief vacancy.

Town Council Chairman Michael Phinney said Wednesday that the council would hear a presentation about the report at its meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7, in the Gorham Municipal Center, 75 South St.

Phinney declined comment on the Police Department domestic violence issue.

“It’s a personnel matter,” Phinney said.

“I expect that we will have a brief presentation of the consultant’s report at our April council meeting and during executive session we will discuss personnel matters as they relate to the hiring of the new police chief,” Bruce Roullard, Town Council vice chairman, said Wednesday.

“While the consultant’s report makes reference to allegations of domestic violence issues within the police department, I have not been presented with any documents that identify issues of domestic violence within the department. I do plan to look further into these allegations,” he said.

Town Councilor Ben Hartwell said he first heard from another councilor last week about the matter involving Mark Sanborn.

“I still haven’t heard anything from the town,” Hartwell said late Wednesday afternoon.

The Town Council is faced with deciding whether to open up a search for a chief, but if a search were to be conducted, Phinney said, it wouldn’t preclude “us from promoting within.”

Phinney described the report as a “tool to help us find the next chief.” Cole expected the process of hiring a chief to be one item discussed in executive session following next week’s regular meeting.

The study included interviews with town councilors, residents, all members of the police department, school superintendent, and two members of the Family Crisis Center.

Made public this week, the study reported poor morale in the department and that “most police department staff interviewed believe the town should look to the outside for their next chief.”

The report indicated that morale issues in the department began before Lt. Chirstopher Sanborn was named acting chief. The report said that Lt. Sanborn has a good professional reputation with residents and town department heads.

Dacri recommended Gorham conduct an open search to fill the chief’s job and invite Sanborn to become a candidate.

The report said that residents feel Gorham is a safe community.

“The public had very high praise for the police department,” Phinney said.

The American Journal reported in October last year that a company, Safe Choice Security, named Gorham as one of the state’s safest cities. Cole on Tuesday praised Shepard’s service to the town.

“He did a great job as chief,” Cole said. “He genuinely cared about the community and it was reflected in his work.”

In feedback from Gorham police officers, Dacri’s report indicates that the department has a good team, excellent pay and a good reputation among other departments. But some officers, according to the report, cited favoritism, nepotism, and lack of internal investigations’ transparency.

“?With respect to the internal affairs investigation that was conducted involving Mark Sanborn, that occurred under Chief Ronald Shepard’s watch?,” Interim Chief Christopher Sanborn said in a statement emailed Wednesday afternoon to the American Journal. “?When that occurred I completely recused myself from the situation and an outside independent party, The TideView Group, conducted the investigation and provided their findings to Chief Shepard. That was a personnel matter that Chief Ronald Shepard handled completely on his own without my involvement.?“?

?He added, “?With respect to the allegations of nepotism and favoritism in the Gorham Police Department?,? those statements are opinion and are not fact based. While there may be a select few individuals that believe that to be the case, to the best of my knowledge the Gorham Police Department has complied with all it’s policies and procedures, and has been run as a professional law enforcement agency, and is viewed as such by both the public and other law enforcement agencies that we interact with. I am not aware of any favoritism or nepotism within the organization.”

Cole said some parties believed that the domestic abuse investigation was handled internally, “which was not the case.”

According to Shepard’s reprimand letter to Mark Sanborn, Jerry Hinton of Tideview Group was hired. “We went to an outside agency to conduct the investigation,” Cole said.

The report also said an external agency had concerns about “domestic violence issues within the department and the process of investigating these claims.”

But this week, Jen LaChance Sibley, outreach services director at Family Crisis Services, said it has “no further comment” on the Gorham Police Department report.

“We do want to acknowledge that Family Crisis Services has a longstanding and good working relationship with the officers at the Gorham Police Department providing follow-up services to victims of domestic violence within their community,” Sibley emailed the American Journal.

Cole said issues identified in the report include the need for more police training and re-instituting the canine unit. Cole said Gorham’s funding for the police department had increased more than the inflation rate in the past 10 years and was second only to the fire department in percentage of increase in the past decade.

The Gorham Police Department, with 23 sworn officers, celebrated its 50th birthday last year. Its officers patrol 150 miles of roads. The once agricultural community has grown to a population of 16,381, according to the 2010 U.S. census figures.

The police budget is $1.6 million, Cole said, which doesn’t include $22,400 for animal shelter services and $308,000 for Cumberland County dispatch. The Town Council has to “balance funding” with what taxpayers can afford, Cole said.

Cole said the report contains a lot of good things and identified things that people thought were issues.

“The report has helped identify issues that need to be looked at more closely,” Cole said.

Officer Sanborn