Meeting was surreal; Foster's reporting was suspect

It was truly surreal on Saturday to see disgraced former selectman and assistant rescue chief Jason Cole's smiling face at the entry to the Lebanon Elementary School gym seeking signatures for a citizens petition to allow recall of Lebanon selectmen and prohibit town vehicles from being garaged out of town.
It was only a couple of years ago that a similar recall petition was in the works to get rid of Cole.
And it was also only a couple of years ago that some Rescue members were complaining Cole was using the same Ford Expedition for personal use so much, members would have to clean out the candy wrappers; and kids toys from the back seat before taking it on a rescue call from his Depot Road home.
The pot calling the kettle black would be an understatement.
When he resigned from both his selectman's and assistant rescue chief's positions at the start of last year, he left under a cloud of suspicion as auditors were coming to grips with egregious mismanagement in the Enterprise Account Cole ramrodded through trusting voters several years ago.
What auditors and the town treasurer found out was that the Enterprise Account was more than $200,000 in the red, a figure that ultimately had to be swallowed by town taxpayers.
Mainers are a giving and gracious people, and a forgiving people, but they are also frugal to a fault.
Most weren't happy the wool had been pulled over their eyes by Cole.
For years under Cole's leadership the Rescue spent money from the Enterprise Account that wasn't there, that ended out just coming out of the town's fund balance.
The reason we study history in school is because if you study the mistakes made in the past, you have a better chance not to repeat them.

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Meanwhile, it was a remarkable week for Foster's Daily Democrat. We counted three stories that were produced regarding Lebanon. Unfortunately they were all messed up.

First there was the Thursday story in which the Foster's headline proclaims, "Rescue response won't change with Lebanon losing EMTs". Hey, how bout giving a reader a break. How about some attribution here. I mean, is that newspaper editors making that claim? Wow, that's remarkable they would have that omniscience. Then the lead graph says Rochester residents "should" see the same level of response. That's a big difference from the statement in the headline that they "will." But the story's even confusing about whether it's all about that Rochester residents won't see a dropoff of service or whether, with Lebanon Fire and Reuse Chief Dan Meehan's comments, they're talking about Lebanon residents. Are you scratching your head now, too?

Then there was the story published on Saturday: "Lebanon reports 'honest mistake' to Maine EMS, police; no charges filed". First off, why would you put "honest mistake" in quotes. I mean, is that like a wink-wink (skimming meds) like the Frisbie employee in February 2014. Then to have such confusion over whether the bottle was "opened" or "unopened." Editors should have picked up the mistake. Oh, but don't worry. They did, three days later. Yeah, it's all fixed now; no correction necessary.

Then they quote Meehan saying he'd never seen such a thing. Gee, what a surprise. He's been a firefighter all his life, not a Rescue guy.

The story was ill-conceived and on life support before the first word was written.

Lastly, there was the Sunday story on Saturday's meet and greet with Meehan, a story they felt so good about they featured it among their top stories on Sunday and today.

The focus of their story was not on Meehan, however, but wrongly on Cole, who since he was run out of town on a rail, has been a source of constant negativity and sniping as the current Rescue tries to re-emerge as a viable first-response entity. The story also had no background about the huge deficit Cole racked up during five years at the helm with the Enterprise Account in his charge. The headline in the story, meanwhile, wrongly identified him a former assistant fire chief.

But like in those funny TV commercials, "But wait, there's more" to last week's Foster's train wreck. The paper reported Feb. 26 that Sanford had dropped its mutual aid pact with Lebanon. Kudos on getting the story. even though it was three weeks late. Sanford pulled the plug Feb. 6.

We agree Lebanon doesn't need more misinformation like what's already circulating on rogue Facebook pages, but it's certainly too bad when the Foster's just adds to it.