Alna’s Jon Luoma said his private email July 14 to several people may have been in poor taste, but was a try at “ironic humor” over claims opponents of Jeff Spinney’s shoreland proposal have harassed town government.

The email and reaction to it come after months of meetings, thousands of dollars in legal bills for Spinney and the town, and a trail of townspeople’s statements, some personal. “These are not normal, happy times in Alna,” Second Selectman Doug Baston said.

“Fellow citizens: This is no time to back down,” Luoma’s email begins. “Our campaign of harassment and oppression is gaining, and our powerless victims the Alna selectmen will soon lie trembling at our feet. When all three have taken leaves of absence, we’ll invade the abandoned town office, dump the dog license files onto the floor, spraypaint revolutionary slogans on the walls, take control of webinars, and blanket the town with our broadcast propaganda and uninterrupted monologues.

“Keep up those vicious letters to the editor and brutal three-minute public comments; victory and domination await. Power to the People!”

The email to, or cc’d to, dozens of people, got around. Wiscasset Newspaper received it from multiple sources and later learned, so did Baston, who shared it with Third Selectman Greg Shute. First Selectman Melissa Spinney, Jeff Spinney’s wife, is on a leave of absence. Luoma said her leave announcement letter, made public July 13, was one of the reasons he wrote the July 14 email. Selectman Spinney’s letter said negativity directed at her and others in the town government has taken a toll on her recovery from a quintuple bypass.

Luoma, one of the project’s opponents, told Wiscasset Newspaper in an email reply to questions, he knows of no harassment by them, “only ... legitimate comment on, and queries about, the permit application.” He said Melissa Spinney’s letter unfairly described citizens’ concern. “The serious issues surrounding (the permit issue) have expanded into serious issues surrounding Alna’s town governance,” Luoma commented.

“My ironic email may have been in poor taste, but it was in response to the unfair characterization of citizen concern about the health and character of the Sheepscot River in Alna by a town official, and to the recent efforts by town officials to limit public comment. To see the email as any more than that, rather than focusing on the important town governance issues in Alna, would be a mistake.”

Fellow project opponent Cathy Johnson concurred in a phone interview. “It was a joke ... it was humor. Maybe it was misguided, but it’s not news.” She said if it was getting media coverage, so should Jeff Spinney’s written statements months ago in the Maine Department of Environmental Protection process. She forwarded his statements calling opposing points stupid, uniformed and absurd.

In new interviews by phone and text, Jeff Spinney stood by the comments and said all the questioning and opposing of his then dock-ramp proposal to the town have driven the town’s legal tab and his. He put his at about $30,000. Voters July 14 rejected raising $50,000 in town legal costs. 

Luoma told Wiscasset Newspaper, the timing of Melissa Spinney’s leave before the referendum vote “can at least partly be interpreted as an attempt to influence the vote.” 

It was not, Baston said. He viewed Selectman Spinney’s letter as accurate, Luoma’s July 14 email as “clownish,” and Luoma’s July16 comment on the timing of Selectman Spinney’s leave a wrong implication that goes to the “basest of assumptions,” as he said some other public comments about town government have. “Some people feel enabled by the national tone” of a lack of civility, Baston said.

A project opponent’s June email to town attorney Amanda Meader described her as rolling her eyes, squirming, misguiding the process and being biased and unprofessional. Baston wrote back the author, “You need to back off. In all seriousness, you have some anger management issues that I think require some professional attention. You are beginning to actually frighten people and I will not have town employees or agents placed in fear.

“This is simply abnormal and unacceptable behavior, and you need to do some self-reflection and seek some outside help,” Baston wrote. Wiscasset Newspaper is not naming the author due to Baston’s claim of their possible mental heath issue.

As for Jon Luoma’s email, Shute said he read it, asked Luoma about it “to do my own due diligence,” then said of the email: “I feel personally, just a level of disappointment. And whether or not the words were written to be humorous or in jest, doesn’t really matter, because they were hurtful to some individuals in town.”

“If we can’t talk civilly and disagree, then this stuff is liable to go on forever,” Shute added. He hopes people will “begin to, or continue to, practice respect with each other even when we (disagree). Treating each other with respect is something that’s quite important to me, even when I disagree with someone ...”

On July 27, the planning board is set to consider Jeff Spinney’s new earthwork proposal and reconsider rejecting his ramp request. Spinney chairs the board. He has taken a leave of absence while the board handles his proposals.