“Dog and Pony Show” is a colloquial term which has come to mean a highly promoted, often over-staged performance, presentation, or event designed to sway or convince opinion for political or commercial ends.

The anticipated foreclosure and auction of the Clary Lake dam took place Friday morning at 11 AM on the steps of the Lincoln County Court House in Wiscasset. The auctioneer was a man named Gregg Dorr who introduced himself as a retired attorney from Camden, hired by Medius L3C for the sole purpose of running this event. When questioned, he said his only contact at Medius L3C was with a “managing partner” of the company by the name of Matthew Staples, from Vermont. When questioned about the new Medius L3C Registered Agent, he explained the change in Registered Agent from Ms. Merritt Carey to a Commercial Registered Agent from Readfield was due to a serious heart condition requiring that she give up the job immediately. If you’re interested, here is the Change of Registered Agent Form from the Secretary of State’s website.

Ten people attended the auction including Assistant Attorney Generals Scott Boak and Thom Harnett, and CLA members Mary Gingrow-Shaw, David Knight, Ellis Percy, Joann Tribby, and myself. Butch Duncan was there as well. The press was represented by Jessica Lowell of Central Maine papers (who wrote the article about the auction that appeared in yesterday’s paper) and Abigail Adams of the Lincoln County News. While Paul Kelley did not attend the actual auction, he was situated nearby, sitting in his red Ford Fiesta across the parking lot, closely watching what was going on.

The auction started promptly at 11 AM. Mr. Dorr started out by reading the terms of the auction, noting that all the statutory requirements for the foreclosure and sale had been met including the publication in a newspaper and the recording of the foreclosure/auction notice in the Lincoln County Registry of Deeds. He then read a Medius L3C “Company Statement.” At the conclusion of the reading, numerous people including myself requested a copy of the statement, and finally at the insistence of AAG Scott Boak, Mr. Dorr reluctantly interrupted the proceedings long enough to go into the court house and make copies. He returned a few minutes later and handed them out.

The “company statement” was printed on Medius L3C letterhead and was not signed. It appears to have been written by someone very involved with events of the past couple of years, before Medius L3C was even a company. The document misrepresents, misstates, or outright fabricates numerous facts, and in so doing attributes actions and/or statements to both me and to the Clary Lake Association which are not true and never happened.

Butch Duncan submitted the only bid, sealed in a plain white envelope. We’ll find out sometime this week whether his bid was sufficient to win the property.

For anyone who is still wondering why the Clary Lake Association did not bid on the dam, I refer you to a 20 January 2016 post entitled “Clary Lake Association withdraws from settlement discussions.”