A week after an email written by Assistant City Administrator Bill Baker caused a public outcry, Westbrook city councilors are looking for answers.

Their initial strategy is to learn about their “legal rights and duties” as a council during a hastily called executive session, set for Wednesday night, after the American Journal’s print deadline.

Baker’s expletive-laced email, in which he mocks several members of the community, was sent to Mayor Colleen Hilton in February, and was read publicly at last week’s City Council meeting by resident and business owner Deb Shangraw.

Baker said he was writing what he “wanted to say” in response to an inquiry from Michael Shaughnessy, the president of the Friends of the Presumpscot River, about a recently installed sculpture project along the riverwalk.

“This is the dumbest (expletive) idea I’ve ever heard,” he said. “I know they say art is in the eye of the beholder, but really, you want to clog up the riverwalk with (expletive) bird houses that some little (expletive) will vandalize in the first 10 minutes.”

Baker wrote an apology letter for the email last week, stating he was “deeply sorry and embarrassed,” and calling the message a “highly inappropriate, but satirical parody.”

Since then, amid questions about employee discipline and calls for Baker to resign, Hilton has backed her employee. She said last week she had “no intentions” of asking for Baker’s resignation. Hilton did not return multiple calls this week for additional comment. A number of councilors and city officials said this week that they have received numerous emails and calls about the incident.

Council President Brendan Rielly said Tuesday that the city’s response has not been enough. He called the executive session of the City Council to allow councilors to consult with the city attorney, Natalie Burns.

“We as a government need to be responding to the public and explaining what happened, what we’re going to do about it, and how things are going to change,” he said. “That hasn’t happened yet.”

Rielly said he called for the executive session Tuesday because he’d like the council to know what they “can and can’t do” in response to recent events.

“Clearly, it’s in response to the situation we’re in now, and the resulting response both publicly and internally,” he said.

While the meeting is not specific to a personnel matter, Rielly said, the session is to find out what the council can do regarding personnel matters.

Nonetheless, Rielly believes the city needs to communicate better.

“There needs to be an immediate and full apology,” he said. “I understand the frustration that was clearly being vented, but these statements should not have been made. There needs to be training on proper use of public emails and steps need to be taken to make sure nothing like this happens again.”

Baker’s email also includes mocking comments about Westbrook artist Caren Michel, who serves on the city’s Arts & Culture Committee; James Tranchemontagne, the owner of the Frog & Turtle restaurant; Shangraw, who owns Emerald Property Management; City Councilor Mike Sanphy; My Place Teen Center Executive Director Donna Dwyer; and Sappi Fine Paper.

Shangraw, who has since called for Baker to resign, said she obtained a series of city emails from a recent Freedom of Information Act request pertaining to budgetary issues, which included the email from Baker.

Shangraw also took exception to Baker’s apology letter last week, in which he blames his recent frustrations on “a small group of mean-spirited people with a harmful political agenda,” referring to Shangraw and Tranchemontagne.

Councilor John O’Hara said he’s received multiple calls from residents who were “shocked” that a city administrator would use such language. He said Wednesday’s executive session will allow councilors to discuss their next steps, but added they would “proceed with caution” within their legal rights as a council.

“We’re taking it slowly, but we’re moving forward,” he said. “Tonight’s discussion will clearly put all the cards on the table as to which way the council wants to progress.”

Councilor Mike Sanphy said he believes Hilton should do something about the incident, adding that the email has become a “passionate” issue in the community. He said that Baker “has been a great asset to us, but it’s sad to see something overshadow all that good. Now, we have to pick up the pieces and go forward.”

Councilors Victor Chau, Paul Emery, and Michael Foley all said this week that they’ve received a few emails regarding Baker, including an instance where a constituent voiced support for Baker, and then retracted it.

Chau said another resident email asked the council to draft a resolve urging Baker to resign, much like the one regarding Emery earlier this month.

Emery was at the center of public ire over his comments directed toward Gov. Paul LePage, made in Scarborough at a meeting of Democrats, when he stated that he wouldn’t be hurt if LePage “goes to see his maker.” Following the statement, the council supported a resolve to urge Emery to resign. He has said he has no plans to step down before his seat is up in November.

However, Rielly said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe the council is able, or would draft such a resolve regarding Baker, who is a city employee, not an elected official.

“We have the duty to police our own essentially,” he said about the Emery resolve. “We don’t have any authority to tell the mayor to take action against any employee.”

Emery said Tuesday that he’s “disappointed” in the mayor’s position on keeping Baker. Many have questioned why he (Emery) was asked to resign, but no discipline has been handed to Baker, he said.

Emery said he’s also been approached on the street by constituents asking about Baker’s comments.

Rielly also said there have been threats of litigation against the city in response to the email.

On Monday, Baker sent a specific apology letter to representatives of My Place Teen Center, who demanded last week that Baker “retract” his negative comments about the teen center and Dwyer.

Tim Higgins, the president of the teen center’s board of directors, said in a letter that the organization “is prepared to take any and all necessary action in order to protect its reputation.”

In the February email, Baker mocked Dwyer, saying she “will argue that (the sculptures) need to be bigger and must have kitchens to feed the 137 kids a day she feeds – by the way you will need to build her stipend in to the cost of construction – she is due 15 percent on the cost of material and labor for anything built within three blocks of the teen center.”

In his retraction letter Monday, Baker said, “I have no personal knowledge of the director’s salary structure or method of compensation and to suggest otherwise is inappropriate and wrong. In fact I have every reason to believe that the director is a dedicated professional person committed to the welfare of children.”

Members of the Friends of the Presumpscot River organization also responded to the email late last week. The group released a report, which it had been working on for months, that says restoring fish passage in the Presumpscot will result in economic benefits for the region.

In Baker’s email, he said, “Thanks to you Sappi will spend 7 million dollars helping 7 fish get over the falls – that is one million a fish you idiot.”

Aaron Frederick, the newly named executive director of the Friends of the Presumpscot River, said in an email last week that Baker’s comments only reaffirmed the importance of releasing their study.

“Ironically, the comments made by Mr. Baker disparaging the importance of fish passage only underscore the importance of this report and getting the information it contains out to the residents and officials in Westbrook,” he said. “So it is very relevant to what is going on, and we hope will be read and thought about.”

Baker, meanwhile, said Wednesday that he has been “hearing from very supportive people,” since the email was made public.

Dennis Dalton, the president of the Westbrook-Gorham Community Chamber, said Tuesday that the chamber discussed Baker’s comments at its meeting last week, and will be releasing a public statement this week.

Ed Symbol, the owner of Full Court Press? on Main Street,? who is also an executive? ?committee member of the Downtown Westbrook Coalition, said Wednesday that? ?he feels that Baker has “done damage to his own reputation and the? ?reputation of the city?.?”

Symbol also believes it’s not something that will be repaired overnight.

“There’s repair to be done, and it doesn’t get done in a day or a week, it? ?gets done over time through actions,” he said.

Rielly said in an email this week that the city needs to “rebuild trust” following the comments from Emery, and now Baker.

“This is a great city,” he said. “We’re hitting some rough patches that need to be fixed so we can continue working on the great things happening in Westbrook.”

William Baker