Town's Appeals Board Denies Charles Sidman Standing in Appeal Concerning Whether Town Can Disembark Cruise Ship Passengers on Ells Pier.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Swan Agency Real Estate.
BAR HARBOR—The town’s appeals board has denied standing to Charles Sidman, a local business owner and lead petitioner of a citizen’s petition that significantly decreased cruise ship visits in Bar Harbor, June 24. Sidman had appealed the town’s decision to allow small cruise ships to disembark passengers at 23 Ells Pier.
Ells Pier is the town pier at the end of West Street. The cruise ships who can disembark passengers there are American Cruise Line ships, which have American flags (meaning that they don’t require Customs officials) and are smaller cruise ships, typically holding approximately 100-200 passengers.
Because American Cruise Lines (ACL) ships are United States flagged vessels, the town doesn’t need a secure facility to disembark its passengers, according to Harbormaster Chris Wharff. The company’s tenders tend to carry 30 passengers at a time.
The appeal is about the town’s issuing a disembarkation facility permit to itself on land zoned “Shoreland General Development 1.” Sidman and his attorney would have argued that this is not an allowed use in the zone.
However, in a meeting that lasted just under an hour, the Appeals Board unanimously agreed that Sidman did not have standing.
Brown and Crouppen define standing as “the right of a party to challenge the conduct of another party in court. Standing is not about the actual issues of the case. Instead, it is about the parties to the lawsuit and where they ‘stand’ in relation towards each other.”
SIDMAN’S STANDING
Robert Papazian (Gebhardt & Kiefer), Sidman’s attorney, argued that in past cases other courts have shown that Sidman has standing. He had two minutes to verbally argue his case.
“This issue has been decided by two courts,” Papazian said of Sidman’s standing. “It is very clear that he has met standing to bring a judicial action to intervene. I just don’t know how many courts need to rule on this before the town understands Mr. Sidman has standing to appeal from the disembarkation of cruise ship passengers.”
Stephen Wagner (Rudman Winchell), who represented the town, argued that Papazian is focusing on court opinions, not town standards and if Mr. Sidman is an aggrieved party. The standard for whether someone is an aggrieved party, he said, is not the court’s, but the town’s.
“They are not the same facts. They are not the same law. They aren’t the same question,” Wagner said. “So, they are, frankly, completely irrelevant. The question is for you is whether or not Mr. Sidman has reached his burden.”
Because Sidman is not a direct neighbor and his property is on Mount Desert Street, Wagner argued during his own two minutes that Sidman’s interest is no different than the general population’s.
Wagner also argued that Papazian was asking the board to be an advisor, when they are, he said, a body of limited jurisdiction.
“You have to show there’s injury,” he said.
P. Andrew Hamilton (Katahdin Law LLC), who represented the abutter—the Golden Anchor—and submitted material to the board as an interested party—argued that as an interested party, they could speak to the standing of Sidman.
Board member Michael Siklosi asked if the issue of standing is normally open for public discussion.
Attorney Dan Pileggi (Acadia Law Group), representing the town’s appeals board, said that as a board the members have written submissions from all who want interested party status.
“I think it was a courtesy that you heard from the party further tonight,” Pileggi said and added that if the board wanted to take public comment, they could. The board, he said, has been historically liberal about allowing the public to participate.
ABUTTER STATUS AND PARTICULARIZED INJURY
One of the aspects of whether or not Sidman had status as an interested party would be if he was an abutter. According to Papazian, Sidman’s property is more than 400 meters away from the pier. He argued that abutter status is not a requirement.
According to Bar Harbor’s code abutting is defined as “having a common border with, or being separated from such common border by an alley, easement, street, road, public way or private way.”
Board Chair Anna Durand said the abutter status is a bit farther away.
The second aspect discussed was whether or not Sidman had particularized harm.
“I don’t believe Mr. Sidman is an aggrieved party in a particularized way,” Siklosi said. He moved that Sidman did not have standing.
Board member Claire Fox said she felt the reasons for standing were “either really general like enjoyment of going to the park” and that his building is not close to the pier. She wasn’t sure if a loss of revenue to Sidman’s gallery was quantifiable. She said she felt many of the reasons could apply to many people in Bar Harbor.
Vice Chair Cara Ryan said, “He’s not an abutter. There’s not a way you can construe—a third of a mile—a quarter of a mile—400 meters is an abutter. And then it’s really more about these issues of direct or indirect effect of this use.”
She referenced Judge Lance Walker’s previous decision that Sidman had standing on the land use given the plausible scope of the impact.
“It was completely different two years ago,” she said. “It was 5,500 people a day potentially, day after day after day. This is 260 people.” She said the impact was different. “I find it really a stretch, honestly.”
She said knows it’s tricky and hard to quantify impact and that can be subjective, but that there are elements that are shaky.
The appeal, she said, is that the town has misread the LUO in regards to permitting and it begs the question of if there is real injury and if there is a quantifiable felt effect.
“We’re talking a massive reduction in possible harms from the things that allowed him to get intervenor status in previous cases,” Ryan said.
Ryan also worried about opening a Pandora’s box of complaints.
“Once we start saying, ‘It harms my appreciation of our town,’ it’s a very fine line. What if I don’t like fireworks. We permit them. What if they bother my dogs. Is the board of appeals the place for that kind of complaint and appeal?” Ryan asked.
“The particularized injury is a tough one because I’m a business person in town and as I have said in other venues: nobody owes me a living and nobody owes me a serenity. You did get what you wanted. We have a 1,000-person limit now,” Durand said.
CONFLICT OF THE INTEREST AND POTENTIAL RECUSALS
Durand gave the members an option to recuse themselves if necessary.
“I did recuse from an abundance of caution in December. Golden Anchor and APPLL are not a party to these proceedings,” Durand said, but she put it out to the board to determine if they believed she had a conflict currently.
Ryan moved that Durand didn’t have a conflict of interest. Siklosi seconded. The board voted that Durand did not have a conflict.
Ryan then said that in the past she had spoke and written on the subject of cruise ships and that she had supported Sidman’s GoFundMe campaign.
From the public, Hamilton said that Golden Anchor is not yet a party to this current appeal. The Golden Anchor had been part of the cruise ship court case that the GoFundMe campaign was raising funds to combat.
Siklosi said he takes people at their word, but that for reasons that recusals occurred previously, Ryan’s recusal was something to consider.
Hamilton said that Golden Anchor and some related businesses would have objections to Ryan serving because when property rights are in question for a cruise ship issue, each individual whose property rights are in question are entitled to an impartial proceeding.
Wagner said the town had no position on potential conflicts. Papazian said that Sidman does not believe there is a conflict.
Ryan had received a $100 witness fee and had been asked to testify for Sidman in a case by APPLL (the Golden Anchor LC was a plaintiff). She was at the trial, but was not called, but still received the witness fee. She then donated that fee to Sidman’s GoFundMe, which was about the case, which is currently in appeal. Ryan said, June 24, that there was a GoFundMe fee of $3 that brought that total amount given to $97.
Siklosi moved Ryan had an appearance of a conflict of interest. There was no second. So, the motion failed and she was allowed to participate in the June 24 discussion.
ETHICS COMPLAINT UPDATE
In March, the Bar Harbor Town Council had accidentally broadcast an executive session (which is meant to be private per Maine law) where they discussed an alleged ethics violation by Ryan and the complaint related to it. Ryan was not at the session. Her name was not meant to be public record nor was the person who made the complaint.
Ryan had previously recused herself from a December appeals board discussion about the Golden Anchor LC because of that ethics complaint. The Golden Anchor runs the Harborside Hotel. The Harborside Hotel has been disputing the town’s new requirements that it have a disembarkation permit for cruise ship tenders.
Ryan had participated in a November meeting concerning the Golden Anchor’s permitting dispute when Hamilton had missed a deadline for submission.
Since March, the issuer of that ethics complaint, Eben Salvatore, has filed in Hancock County Superior Court against the town. That filing occurred in April and is now public record. In Bar Harbor, the person who has made an ethics complaint is also meant to be kept private by town rules.
The court document alleges about the town’s ethics commission, “the Commission failed to render any findings that could be reviewed by Plaintiff as Complainant or to otherwise give notice of its erroneous determination that the ethical violation(s) by Ms. Ryan were minor. Instead, Plaintiff learned of the minor violation finding by the Commission when Plaintiff as Complainant received a summary notice via a March 31, 2025 email from the Bar Harbor Town Manager that the violation(s) had been addressed with the accused and that no further action or notice would be given.”
When a complaint is deemed minor, the person who complained does not interact with the commission beyond the original complaint. Since that April filing, the town has filed in court that the person who issued the original complaint (and brought the matter to the Superior Court) does not have standing. This past Monday, that person responded that they did indeed have standing per the town’s ethics ordinance, which details the process.
Ryan previously told the Bar Harbor Story, “I know the difference between public debate about town issues and Appeals Board work. In the latter, we have to deal with facts and the LUO, nothing else. I wasn’t trying to hide my public statements about cruise ships–my only mistake was not making a point of insisting on a conflict review at a special preliminary meeting. It’s the board’s job to determine whether members have a conflict or appearance of conflict or even bias sufficient to disqualify them from participation. I hope in the future we can prevent this kind of weaponization of our ethics ordinance.”
According to the town’s ordinance, “the voting membership” of the Town of Bar Harbor Ethics Commission “shall include the current Chair and Vice Chair of the Town Council, Superintending School Committee and Warrant Committee, as well as the Secretary of the Warrant Committee.”
The commission’s duties are to “make findings of fact, recommend appropriate discipline to the Town Council and render opinions concerning application of the provisions of the Town Code of Ethics to any particular situation.”
OTHER ACTIONS
The board approved minutes for previous meetings, but Ryan suggested an amendment on the minutes’ phrasing “current structures on the property” rather than “the relevant” caused the lot to be non-conforming. The board agreed. Durand abstained because she had not been a participant at the meeting.
WARRANT COMMITTEE MEETING SCHEDULED
On June 24, the town sent notice to Warrant Committee members and posted on the town website that there will be a Warrant Committee meeting on Thursday, June 26.
The committee vacancy mentioned below is due to member Steven Boucher being elected to the town council. People can not serve on both of those elected bodies simultaneously.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Application Materials
Application (submitted May 9, 2025)
Additional Submission-1 (Submitted June 4, 2025)
Additional Submission-2 (Submitted June 4, 2025)
Additional Submission-3 (Submitted June 4, 2025)
Town of Bar Harbor Lawyer Submission (submitted June 17, 2025)
Town of Bar Harbor Lawyer Submission - Letter (submitted June 17, 2025)
Golden Anchor Interested Party Submission - Letter (submitted June 17, 2025)
Golden Anchor Interested Party Submission (submitted June 17, 2025)
ACL (American Cruise Lines) Interested Party Letter (submitted June 17, 2025)
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