A private Facebook group has become the place to share information in Fairfield, but some residents, including candidates for town offices, have been blocked from the site. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

FAIRFIELD — Volatile online interactions have left some Fairfield residents excluded from what has become a primary source of community information: a privately run Facebook group.

“Fairfield Maine Our Community Group,” has attracted about 6,600 members. Because Fairfield, population 6,484 in 2023, has no official municipal social media page, both residents and officials depend on the group to communicate, giving it an outsized impact on town proceedings.

It’s the place to get local information — as long as residents are allowed to read and post there.

Casey Begin

Fairfield resident Casey Begin is the founder and administrator of the group. Begin, who ran unsuccessfully for a three-year term on the Town Council this year, said he created the page in 2018 to give residents a space to communicate. 

“I created it several years ago, because there was no way really for the townspeople to communicate when there were issues going on, problems in the community,” Begin said. “It came in very handy when we had the flood in December. People used it to find places where there was shelter, people that had electricity, what they could do, who they can contact — because the town website really doesn’t do that.”

The forum is home to a steady stream of posts about community events and business announcements, as well as messages from local elected officials, including Councilor Peter Lawrence, Council Chairman Matt Townsend, state Rep. Shelley Rudnicki and Matt Tulley, a newly elected councilor.

Townsend said sharing public information over social media as an elected official is acceptable as long as town business isn’t being conducted online.

“I think the biggest thing for a lot of us, that we’ve learned along the line, is to not carry out town business on the site,” Townsend said. “People want you to make a commitment, people want you to say what’s going on. And sometimes you just can’t, because there’s things that we don’t have the information on yet. And so when you start putting out things that you aren’t sure about on social media, that’s when it blows up.”

Adam Lerette Photo courtesy of U.S. Cellular

For one Town Council member, things did blow up. Adam Lerette, who was appointed to the council earlier this year, said he was banned from the group Sept. 23 after a tense back and forth with Begin.

Before his removal, Lerette said he had viewed the group as a means of reaching residents who are less involved in local politics.

“The community group was an avenue for me to post the agendas every single meeting, invite people to have a conversation,” Lerette said. “And it was going great until election season came up.  Unfortunately, things got a little more tense, and it appears that the only admin of the group decided to silence specific people such as myself.”

Lerette said he had been speaking out against instances of misinformation on the page, including a conversation he said misrepresented the urgency of the situation around Fairfield’s future with Delta Ambulance, which provides the town with emergency medical services.

“I’ll wear this on my sleeve, absolutely; I felt some sort of obligation to make sure that the correct information was out there, because typically, the misinformation painted either the council or specific councilors in a certain way,” Lerette said.

This time last year, discussions in the Facebook group led to tense discussions at the Nov. 15 and Dec. 13 council meetings, with residents  claiming that municipal votes had been tampered with, that the council was having secret meetings, and that councilors were pocketing community donations directed toward a town ice rink.

At the Town Council’s public meeting Nov. 15, 2023, Townsend spoke to the trend of disinformation being disseminated online.

“I think it’s very important in this day and age to take a step back, ask why and consider who you’re dealing with,” Townsend said at the 2023 meeting. “The election was run very cleanly, people worked very hard, it was great to see a wide turnout and it was great to see people involved. And that is the take home. That is all that should be, really, talked about.”

But this year, tension in the group mounted anew as election season approached.

Begin, whose posts and comments are identified by his “admin” label, said he endorsed the newly elected Tulley online multiple times, but banned Tulley’s opponent, Kevin Kitchin, from the group Sept. 10 due to his alleged behavior over private messages on Facebook.

“I was so sick of all the drama from the election that I just removed him from the page,” Begin said. “It’s the only way to keep the page manageable so people aren’t constantly at each other’s throat. The election is like the most trying time of the year.”

Kevin Kitchin Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Begin also said that he deletes comments that are negative or attack another member of the group. He has six rules listed on the page, requiring that members reside in Fairfield, avoid bullying other group members privately or publicly, and keep insults and complaints about the group to themselves.

“I want the people to be permitted to voice their opinion about what’s going on in the election, what the town is spending on their budget,” Begin said. “That type of stuff needs to be out there, absolutely. But the political stuff, when it starts to get personal, that’s where I draw the line.”

Kitchin said that Begin has refused to tell him why he was removed from the group, and that he has no knowledge of any private messages or rule violations that would be grounds for his removal.

Kitchin, Lerette and Kerry Hekl — another 2024 candidate who was banned from the group last year — joined a different town Facebook group with 1,400 followers. The administrator of that group, another Fairfield resident, stated in a Nov. 5 post that she will no longer allow posts about political topics.

Kitchin said that he now has no avenue to engage in political discussion, especially as he weighs the possibility of a future campaign. Other residents, he said, could easily be left with the impression he’s not involved in local matters.

“The unfortunate thing is, there’s people that follow that group that would (notice) any political candidate that is not active in the community, doesn’t help get their name out there — not knowing that they’re being blocked from the page,” Kitchin said.

Others have left the group by choice. Resident Isabelle Bailey, 29, joined the group to connect with her community when she moved back to Fairfield in 2020. Bailey said after seeing the content veer steadily toward right-wing posts and threats and conspiracies over the years, she finally left the group after the election.

“It’s pretty worrying that we have a group of this size and this magnitude that I think most people think is the official Facebook page,” Bailey said. “I have family in there — it does not matter their political beliefs, it’s a spectrum of political beliefs — but I know that there’s a level of egregious behavior that is happening in that group that is, whether intentionally or not, representing the people of Fairfield.”

Bailey said she prefers the smaller Fairfield Facebook group because of its simplicity.

“The other group is sharing what’s going on at the PTA, it’s sharing the PAL Sports schedule,” Bailey said. “It’s just so bland, which is how a town Facebook group should be. It should just be information.”

Councilors have discussed the idea of updating the town website or forming an official social media page, but no real plans have been made. Lerette said he hopes that online conversations become more positive and productive, because social media isn’t going anywhere.

“Sometimes it’s easier to meet them where they’re at, and that’s right on Facebook,” Lerette said.