Attorney’s opinion flawed on code of ethics ordinance

To the Editor:
    Our Completed (7A) Code of Ethics Ordinance, dated June 13, 2014, was filed with the Town Clerk for intent to circulate with a petition on June 20, 2014. It was circulated from June 20 through June 25, 2014 and turned in to our Town Clerk on June 27, 2014. It was verified, notarized, and attested to be true and correct, and later presented to the Board of Selectmen on July 8, 2014 during a board meeting with 118 legal signatures, and all of the board members voted to put it on the warrant for the upcoming Annual Town Meeting.

    They are all in fact the same attested to and notarized Code of Ethics Ordinance in this Warrant Article you are about to vote on.
    On Pages 80-83, of the Sangerville Town Report, the information Eaton & Peabody is basing their opinion on, is not the same Code of Ethics Ordinance we petitioned, circulated, signed, and was attested to by our Town Clerk as being true and correct. The completed (7A) Code of Ethics Ordinance we are voting on contains seven pages, and Eaton & Peabody’s information they are basing there opinion on contains 10 pages — three of which are not part of this ordinance.
    On Page 81 of the Warrant or Town report, paragraph 4 Eaton & Peabody refers to the ethics code portion pages 5, 6, and 7 whereas our Civil Conduct portion contains pages 6 and 7.
    On Page 81 of the Warrant, Eaton Peabody’s response in the last paragraph 6 refers to (see page 1 and pages 8, 9 and 10 ). Pages 8, 9, and 10 are in fact dated May 31, 2014 and are none existent in our Code of Ethics Ordinance, then and now.
    May 31, 2014 was more than a month before the MMA response on July 17, 2014 labeling our Code of Ethics Ordinance Legal and was put on the warrant to vote on, on July 8, 2014. All of which indicates to me that Eaton & Peabody is referring to a totally different set of documents, and is clearly not referring to our attested Code of Ethics Ordinance in which we are about to vote on.
    So I ask you to totally disregard Eaton & Peabody’s erroneous opinion which is totally based on incorrect information.

Richard R Dobson Sr.
Sangerville