“None of us outside City Hall knows everything occurring inside City Hall. We don’t sit in every meeting, participate in legally permitted executive sessions, receive every piece of legal advice or see every communication exchanged.”
By KYLE NOBLE | Special to the Gazette
The Biddeford Gazette is attracting some excellent local writers, and Ben Neveux is one of them. His August 11 column, “Mayor LaFountain, It’s Time to Stop Fighting UNE,” was thoughtful, well written and clearly motivated by concern for Biddeford’s future.
Ben and I also agree on something fundamental: the University of New England is enormously important to this community. UNE educates young people, employs our neighbors, conducts valuable research and contributes substantially to Biddeford’s economy and identity.
But I believe Ben is way off the mark in his criticism of Mayor Liam LaFountain and the City Council.
Ben argues that after years of regulatory review, Biddeford needed to stop fighting UNE and respect the process. He also questioned whether continuing the dispute represented the collaborative government the mayor had promised. The problem is that the controversy has been largely about the integrity of the process itself.
I know something about UNE and Biddeford working together. I served on the City Council in 2001 and supported changes that helped UNE advance an important expansion. I advocated for the governmental accommodations necessary for the university’s growth. I later joined Friends of UNE, an organization that once provided a valuable line of communication between the university and the surrounding community.
I supported UNE then. I support the university’s educational mission today. But a genuine partnership is a two-way street.
That is why I believe the current mayor and council deserve considerably more credit—and considerably more patience—than Ben gives them.
None of us outside City Hall knows everything occurring inside City Hall. We don’t sit in every meeting, participate in legally permitted executive sessions, receive every piece of legal advice or see every communication exchanged between municipal officials and UNE.
“I believe the current mayor
and council deserve
considerably more credit
and considerably more patience
than Ben gives them.”
It is therefore risky to conclude from outside that city officials are simply prolonging a fight because they dislike the outcome.
What I see instead is a new administration trying to restore transparency, accountability and public confidence to regulatory processes that had become badly strained. And this administration didn’t create those problems.
Consider just three controversies inherited by the current mayor and council: the handling of UNE’s proposed use of the former convent property; the extraordinary decision during the pier review to remove Biddeford’s harbormaster and assistant harbormaster from their normal roles; and the discovery that the Saco River Corridor Commission approved UNE’s pier in 2024 without considering the 250-foot riverfront protection established in 2001.
Those are not inventions of Mayor LaFountain. They are problems his administration inherited.
The mayor and council responded by imposing a temporary development moratorium and re-establishing the Institutional Zone Review Committee to undertake a comprehensive examination of zoning standards that had gone largely untouched for approximately 25 years.
The committee has spent months reviewing the history and is preparing recommendations that will themselves receive public hearings before the Planning Board and City Council.
And look at what just happened with the City’s SRCC litigation.
The city didn’t stubbornly continue fighting simply because it could. After the SRCC reconsidered the 2001 buffer with full knowledge of it and voted August 26 to reaffirm UNE’s permit, Mayor LaFountain announced that Biddeford would withdraw its court challenge. He concluded that spending additional taxpayer money on litigation no longer made sense.
That sounds remarkably similar to the judgment Ben was asking him to exercise.
But something important was accomplished before the city stopped.
In 2024, the SRCC approved UNE’s project without considering the longstanding 250-foot protection. In 2026, after Biddeford persisted, the Commission confronted that protection directly.
Councilor Patricia Boston put the distinction succinctly: in 2024 the SRCC acted without considering the protection; in 2026 it acted with full knowledge of it.
People can disagree about the outcome. But bringing an overlooked 2001 governmental restriction into public view is not pointless obstruction.
It is accountability.
Ben wrote that government must provide predictable rules and that a regulatory process “has to mean something.” On that principle, we completely agree.
But predictability has to work both ways. Applicants deserve a fair, consistent regulatory process. So do residents. So do neighboring property owners.
And when government discovers serious questions about how previous decisions were made, examining those questions isn’t moving the finish line. Sometimes it is determining where the finish line legally was in the first place.
Mayor LaFountain and this council have been in office only about eight months. In that short period, they have forced difficult questions into public view, revived a long-dormant review of institutional zoning, created opportunities for public participation and, when further litigation ceased to serve a useful purpose, ended it.
Give them time to finish the job.
UNE and Biddeford need each other. Neither should dominate the relationship, and neither should be expected simply to accommodate the other.
The best outcome isn’t a city victory or a UNE victory. It is a restored relationship in which both institutions respect what the other contributes, both accept appropriate scrutiny, and both understand that partnership travels in two directions. That’s where I believe this mayor and council are trying to take us.
Have some patience for the proper application of the rule of law.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Kyle Noble of Biddeford is a former city councilor and school committee member.
.
The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Biddeford Gazette, its staff, affiliates or sponsors. We encourage robust and diverse community conversations on topics related to the city of Biddeford. To submit your own letter or column, please CONTACT US
.
STAY CONNECTED | SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE TODAY
.
BIDDEFORD GAZETTE
“Keeping You Connected to Biddeford”
Editorial Standards & Policies
© 2026 Biddeford Gazette, Inc. All Rights Reserved
BIDDEFORD GAZETTE 