Why Pull the Plug on the Milliken Nomination?
While Congress and Wall Street are searching for higher standards of business practices to help clean up shoddy deals and restore investor confidence, isn’t it time that Maine citizens insist that ethical standards apply to government? While Congress and Wall Street are searching for higher standards of business practices to help clean up shoddy deals and restore investor confidence, isn’t it time that Maine citizens insist that ethical standards apply to government? If your answer is yes, then take a close look at the growing controversy over the re-nomination of Roger Milliken, Jr. to another term on the Land for Maine’s Future Board. The hearing is set for Tuesday in Augusta. Roger Milliken, Jr. of Cumberland serves on both the state and national boards of The Nature Conservancy, the very organization which requests funds and constantly partners in land acquisitions with the Land for Maine’s Future Board.
He can ethically serve on the Land for Maine’s Future Board or serve on the national Board of Governors of Virginia-based TNC and chair the Maine Chapter of The Nature Conservancy but he can’t do both without obvious conflict of interest. His interlocking directorships won’t pass the straight face test and the public won’t stand for it if they find out.
An example of upcoming conflict is the recent TNC-Great Northern Paper deal known as the Katahdin Forest which will undoubtedly end up on the doorstep of the Land for Maine’s Future Board for at least partial financing. Will Milliken, an official of The Nature Conservancy, have the sensitivity to reflect the views of the upset leaseholders who, based on history, now fear that they will ultimately lose those leases? Will he respect the admonition of the Town Manager of Millinocket that any attempt to pick the pockets of taxpayers to support this unwise purchase will be met with my strongest possible opposition? It’s doubtful when he’s so closely linked to the the organization (TNC) which made the deal.
Roger is a supposed to be public member of the Land for Maine’s Future Board, but his TNC affiliation defies that label.
Looking to Maine’s statute governing conflict of interest by a Land for Maine’s Future Board member, we can only find this in Title 5: Personal Bias: If a charge of bias or personal financial interest, direct or indirect, is filed against a member requesting that member to withdraw from a proceeding of the board, that member shall determine whether or not to withdraw and shall make that determination part of the record of that proceeding.’
What it says is that Roger will decide if Roger has a conflict of interest.
If he were conscious of conflict of interest, he would never have agreed to serve on the TNC boards while serving on the Land for Maine’s Future Board, so the conflict needs to be brought to the attention of the Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry Committee which will hear the nomination on Tuesday, September 24th at 10 a.m. at the Cross Office Building in Room 206. If he is turned down by the committee, it would take a 2/3 vote of the Senate to override.
Author Ron Arnold paints an unflattering and alarming picture of The Nature Conservancy in his book Undue Influence which you can read here, but regardless of one’s view of TNC, with Roger Milliken as the direct link in promoting the interests of this powerful, out-of-state environmental organization, they are able to exert undue influence on the people of Maine.
Whether it’s Enron, Worldcom or Land for Maine’s Future Board, decisions are best made according to good ethical practices, not (in the case of the land board) the agendas of environmental groups which can run contrary to good Maine public policy.
The Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry Committee, while acknowledging the many contributions of Roger Milliken, Jr., should turn down this nomination and wait for the Governor to post the name of someone with no official ties to the organizations the Land for Maine’s Future does business with. any attempt to pick the pockets of taxpayers …will be met with my strongest possible opposition.