Gardiner city councilor vacates Water Street home

GARDINER — Under an agreement reached with the city of Gardiner, Penny Sergent agreed to leave the Water Street property where she and her family have lived since 2016 by Wednesday, and she has apparently done so.

Penny Sergent

Reached on Monday at an Augusta hotel, Sergent, a Gardiner city councilor, said, “You’re not to print anything about me ever again.”

This move marks the latest step in a process that began in February with the disclosure at a City Council meeting that the city in 2019 had foreclosed on the property where she was living, and several city councilors called on her to resign.

It’s not clear that it will end a month’s-long conflict between Sergent and some city officials, carried out mostly out of the public’s view via emails from Sergent to Mayor Patricia Hart, Acting City Manager Anne Davis and some city staff members.

Some of it has been very public, not at City Council meetings — which Sergent has largely failed to attend since May — but at the home and downtown Gardiner business office of Hart, where Sergent has been seen yelling and chanting seeking Hart’s ouster, and at City Hall, where she was holding a sign asking people to honk, and shouting at passing cars.

Sergent, who served in the U.S. Navy, has acknowledged in a February interview with the Kennebec Journal that “things got away from her”. Shortly after she bought the Water Street house, her husband suffered a stroke and his health declined, resulting in a number of surgeries and the loss of his foot.

Sergent has put the blame on city officials.

“I think (being a city councilor) is a position where people in the city have put their trust in you to do your homework, to participate, to be prepared, to be fully present and to listen to everybody and be respectful and accountable,” Hart said. “I think it’s a great honor to be elected.”

The public got one indication of the conflict on June 9, when Hart asked that an email from Sergent regarding the proposed city budget be read at a City Council meeting.

In it, Sergent wrote that the budget is “a joke” and that it was too big for a small town.

“This town is nothing more than a real estate scam enabled by Pat (Hart), and that’s why she really wants to get rid of me at the council. I asked why we are letting businesses get away with murder while making everything harder on the people, and it upset her that I, scum betwixt her toes, asked why,” she wrote in the email. “Those TIF accounts do nothing but raise property taxes and make it so those businesses don’t have to pay their fair share of the wear and tear on roads. And we both know that it is where Terry Berry and every other person connected to this real estate scam is putting money.”

A public records request by the Kennebec Journal found that over the course of months, Sergent has sent dozens of emails from her City of Gardiner email account to Hart and to Davis. Among other things, she accuses Hart of having a narcissistic personality disorder, lying and hating poor people, and has repeatedly called on her to resign. Sergent demanded documents under threat of subpoena and has accused Davis of disenfranchising her by preventing her from joining virtual meetings and of kicking her out of her house.

“You need to stop getting fragile Pat Hart to explain nothing…we pay you an ungodly amount of money, you tell me why you are so hot to get me out of my home for money you make in less than two months. I don’t care if it is me or anyone else…taking people’s home for pocket change is loathsome and sad. Buck up and grow a spine…tell people the truth….that, that firetrap of downtown means more than your humanity. For shame. Shame on every single one of you,” Sergent wrote in June.

Davis said she’s worked for the city of Gardiner for three decades, filling in on three occasions as interim or acting city manager, as she is doing now.

“I have had difficult conversations with councilors, but this level of harassment I have never seen,” Davis. “She’s not just hassling people in leadership, she’s hassling my staff.”

Davis, who is also the city’s information technology director, said she worked with Sergent’s city-issued iPad to make sure it worked and was able to run Zoom, the virtual meeting platform city officials have used to hold City Council meetings.

Every time Davis has turned over the iPad to Sergent, it has worked, she said. If an internet connection was needed, Davis said she could have used the wifi at the Gardiner Public Library, the wifi in City Hall, or she could have called in via telephone.

NONPAYMENT OF TAXES

Sergent’s agreement to leave her property was reached before city officials went to court at the Capital Judicial Center in July to obtain an eviction order on three residential properties that the city had foreclosed on for nonpayment of property taxes, sewer fees or both. Under the terms of the agreement, Sergent had until Sept. 1 to leave; if she didn’t, the eviction order would be served and the home would be secured.

Public records show Sergent bought the house at 596 Water St. in 2016 but failed to pay either property tax or sewer fees, which generated liens against the property. A lien is a legal claim made against a property for failure to pay a debt like property taxes owed.

Under Maine state law, foreclosure takes place if the debt is not paid off after 18 months.

So while Sergent and her family continued to live in the two-story white home, it had become a tax-acquired property of the city of Gardiner before she first ran unsuccessfully for the District 2 City Council seat in November 2019.

Sergeant ran again in 2020 and was elected. She was sworn in in January 2021.

Eight weeks later, the Gardiner City Council learned of the foreclosure during a Feb. 24 review of 16 tax-acquired properties that included the property where Sergent was living. According to city records, $12,382.32 in property tax and sewer fees were owed on that property.

The review was a follow-up for a series of priorities that elected officials set for themselves earlier in the month at a goal-setting session. Among them was returning tax-acquired properties to the city’s property tax rolls.

Across Maine, city and town officials routinely meet with people who are having trouble paying their property taxes.

Before foreclosure, municipal officials can make sure a property owner has signed up for all the property tax relief possible, including the homestead exemption, and programs for veterans or senior citizens and give them information about general assistance, food banks or other options to free up cash to pay what’s owed.

After foreclosure, the process is different, and options are limited. Residents can meet with elected officials in executive sessions to work out a payment plan to clear the debt and regain their property.

Sergent did not attend the meeting where the matter was first discussed, and since then, she has missed other city council meetings, including meetings where tax-acquired properties were discussed. But she also missed the City Council meeting where the proposed budget was discussed and debated.

A city memo indicates that Sergent met with the City Council to buy back her property in 2019, agreeing to make payments every month, but that she had not filled out the repayment paperwork, nor had she made any payments.

Sergent has said she has tried to pay what she owes, but city staff wouldn’t take her money. She also said she has filed some paperwork but every time she tried to file more, she was told she had to go before the City Council. She said she has never met with the council.

Hart said there are two different issues at play. One is that property taxes have never been paid on the property since Sergent bought it; the other is the city’s obligation to work with people who may need extra time to pay their taxes.

“We have an obligation to get these properties back on the tax rolls for all the other taxpayers,” Hart said. “It’s hard. But you have an obligation when you buy property to pay your property taxes, and there’s consequences if you don’t.”

Davis said someone had inquired about paying part of Sergent’s delinquent taxes after the property had been foreclosed on. At that point, the request would have to be considered by the City Council, but the person never came back.

“The City Council could have forgiven any interest, but they would have wanted the full amount owed paid immediately,” Davis said.

In many cases, municipalities sell foreclosed properties to recoup only what they are owed in unpaid taxes or fees as well as any costs incurred in the sale of the property. State law requires municipalities that have foreclosed on properties formerly owned by people who meet specific age and income requirements to sell them at fair market value; once the municipality’s costs have been recovered, the remaining funds are turned over to the former owners.

In May, the City Council opted to contract with Realtor to market and sell the Water Street property and three others for their fair market value and waive the age restriction even though the former owners don’t all meet the age requirement of being at least 65.

Davis said if any money is left after the city covers its costs on the Water Street property, it will go to Sergent.

“There’s no strings attached to the money,” Davis said.

STILL A COUNCILOR

In February, Sergent said she would not resign unless the people told her to go.

It’s not clear how many Gardiner residents are aware of the details of Sergent’s situation. But some constituents don’t like the idea that she has not paid property taxes and has skipped many meetings.

“If you’re doing your job, that’s one thing,” Kari Parker, who has lived in Gardiner for nine years, said. “But if you’re not, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say you should probably not be in this position until you get your house in order.”

Jen White said it’s a moral and ethical issue.

“That’s not OK,” White said. “Frankly, I don’t think that’s OK if everyone else is paying taxes. Plus, she’s representing Gardiner.”

Someone representing the city of Gardiner that isn’t able to go by the rules shouldn’t be a city councilor, White said.

At the city level, there has been little that city officials could do. The city charter, the document that details how the city operates, does not address attendance at City Council meetings and contains only one provision for a councilor’s removal: “Any member of the City Council who shall be convicted of a crime while in office, may after due notice and hearing before the City Council, may be removed from office.”

That’s likely to change. Earlier this summer, councilors began to consider how the charter — which requires city councilors to live in Gardiner — could be amended to change its language to be gender-neutral but to also address behavior by city councilors.

“The situation we finding ourselves in has highlighted some areas of the charter that need to be updated,” Hart said. “The last time it was updated was I think more than 20 years ago.”

When the City Council meets on Wednesday, it will hear an update of the status of its tax-acquired properties.

Sergent remains a Gardiner city councilor.