A late-night effort by the South Portland City Council to go behind closed doors to discuss embezzlement allegations against Dana Anderson was thwarted Monday when the longtime Public Works chief said he first needed to find an attorney to represent him.

Monday night, confusion reigned on the council, as City Manager Jim Gailey and Mayor Tom Blake said they knew that Anderson would be absent from the executive session. No one else on the council had been informed in advance and was prepared to vote to meet.

It was not until the motion was made to go into executive session that Councilor Jim Soule questioned the wording and asked why it did not state that “city personnel” should be included in the closed-door meeting.

Blake then explained that Anderson could not find an attorney in time and would not be attending. His current attorney works for a firm that represents the city and would have a conflict if he represented Anderson under questioning by the council.

Although Anderson is not required to have legal representation for a council review, he apparently wanted to have an attorney present when members questioned him about embezzlement allegations he settled this month in a civil case brought by the International Association of Affiliated Basketball Officials.

After several minutes of angry discussion, the council defeated the motion. Soule pressed for the council to impose a deadline for Anderson to find an attorney, but no action was taken.

Members also argued whether a discussion of Anderson’s department and finances behind closed doors was appropriate or should be done in public.

Councilor Maxine Beecher argued that the council should look at the finances of all departments and not “discriminate” against Anderson. Councilor Linda Boudreau urged that any review of budgets and finances should be done in open session.

Soule had been leading the effort to review Anderson in executive session, and clearly seemed confused by the sudden turn of events on Monday night.

Left unclear was whether the City Council will once again try to meet with Anderson behind closed doors to question him about the embezzlement lawsuit over his role as treasurer with the referees’ group.

The organization had alleged that Anderson embezzled more than $37,000 over a number of years. Anderson denied the allegations, and paid $900 to settle out of court.

For more on this story, see this week’s edition of the Current.