No Good Deed

They say that no good deed goes unpunished, and if you don’t believe that just ask Biddeford City Councilor Robert “Bobby” Quattrone.

A couple of weeks ago, Quattrone and other members of the city council received an e-mail from Vicky Edgerly, the city’s welfare director.

In her e-mail, Edgerly asked if any of the councilors knew someone who would be willing to donate a walker for an indigent client.

Quattrone immediately stepped up to the task. “It really hit home with me,” he said. “My grandmother had MS (multiple sclerosis), and I know how hard it can be when you can’t move around on your own.”

Quattrone, who is also a member of the city’s Social Services Committee, took to social media in his quest to find a walker. He posted several updates on his Facebook page, relentlessly prodding his friends if they or someone they knew might be able to donate a walker.

The good news? According to Quattrone, Pris Paul of Biddeford donated a walker.

But the story does not end there. Quattrone said he did not know the woman who donated the walker. He did not have her telephone number or an e-mail address.

So, Quattrone decided to thank the donor publicly via a letter to the editor in the Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier.

So far, so good. Right? Wrong.

Because it’s election season and because Quattrone is running for re-election, the weekly newspaper’s editor, Molly Lovell-Keely, rejected Quattrone’s letter.

“She (Lovell-Keely) told me it would not be fair to print my letter because it could be construed as political,” Quattrone said. “I accepted that explanation until I saw the next edition of the Courier.”

In the Sept. 24 issue of the Courier is a letter to the editor by Terry Belanger. Not coincidentally, Mr. Belanger is running against Quattrone for the Ward Four city council seat.

“I was sort of taken aback, especially after I read Mr. Belanger’s letter,” Quattrone said.

The letter carried the following headline: ‘Candidate says city mayor is shortsighted’

Belanger’s letter harshly criticizes Mayor Alan Casavant and members of the city council. Belanger’s tirade closes with the following: “I want to be part of that change and be able to stand up for you. That’s why I’m running for Ward 4.”

Maybe it’s just me, but a letter like that sounds a tad political, eh?

Quattrone said he called Lovell-Keely to complain.

“She said she was sorry,” he said. “She said it was an oversight.”

Pretty big oversight in my book, but what do I know?

During my tenure as the Courier’s editor (1999-2006) we always accepted one letter from each candidate and we accepted multiple letters from regular people supporting various candidates up until two weeks before the election.

Lovell-Keely has plainly demonstrated on several occasions that she is biased against Mayor Alan Casavant. Her husband, Brian Keely, an amateur blogger, foams at the mouth at every given opportunity to bash Casavant and his supporters.

I’ll bet dollars to donuts that a letter critical of Casavant’s opponent in the upcoming election would never see the light of day.

The good news is that a needy person got a much-needed walker. More good news: a city councilor helped facilitate the donation. The better news is that someone was generous enough to donate a walker for a good cause.

The bad news? I’ll leave that for the Courier to cover. Unless, of course, the editor has another oversight.