Back to Commentary Table of Contents

Roland Dupont’s Name Reemerges Politically
Only Weeks After Hand Slap From Mass. OCPF

By Michael Bradley

BOURNE, MA – Ironically, with two selectman seats about to be open for the upcoming spring elections in Cape Cod’s gateway town, the greatest amount of speculation about who will be elected has not been focused on the candidates who took out nomination papers early, but rather on rumors that Roland J. Dupont from Sagamore was being asked to run by people who fought the new town Charter and who are still opposed to its application.

This is not too surprising, since if Mr. Dupont becomes a candidate for selectman, or for that matter any other elected office, he will be immediately be in the spotlight. In fact, even as recently as the first week of 2003 Dupont achieved some notoriety, receiving a firm hand slap from the Massachusetts Office of Campaign & Political Finance for his activities during a failed bid to retain a seat on the Barnstable County Commission last fall.

In that race, Dupont refused to follow the dictates of the state’s campaign finance law, and asserted that his rebellion was based on the high concept of running for election without fund raising. Yet Mr. Dupont walked a fine and thin line, asking supporters to contribute to non-profit organizations rather than directly to him, but to still organize and work on his behalf. Clearly the state authorities feel he crossed to the wrong side of the regulations, high-sounding concept or not.

The state has now made it clear that Mr. Dupont broke the election laws. Michael J. Sullivan, director of the state’s Office of Campaign & Political Finance, told Mr. Dupont in a letter dated January 6, 2003, that "based on our review, your failure to timely designate a depository bank and disclose campaign finance activity violated Mass. General Laws, Chapter 55, Section 19."

"Section 19 of the campaign finance law requires candidates for county commissioner to designate a financial institution to receive all campaign funds and report activity," Sullivan goes on to state, and "this requirement is triggered either by receiving or expending monies for campaign purposes or upon filing nomination papers in order to qualify for the ballet, whichever is earlier."

Although Director Sullivan’s admonishment entailed no fines or sanctions, other than the potential embarrassment of making his letter a public document, it is clear he rejected the stand Mr. Dupont sought to take in avoiding the law.

"OCPF first advised you of your obligation to designate a depository bank in June, 2002," Sullivan states, adding: "Despite several notices you did not open a depository account until immediately before the November election, after campaign expenditures had already been made."

"We consider such a lack of timely compliance to be a serious matter," Sullivan says, concluding that, "it is our expectation that the review and guidance provided as a result of this review will result in compliance with the campaign finance law in the future."

Should Mr. Dupont, with or without urging from others, decide to seek elective office again, it can indeed only be hoped that he will show respect for the process by which all other candidates function.

When Bourne became the last town in the Commonwealth to do away with a full-time board of selectmen in favor of a five member, part-time board, Mr. Dupont was a member of one of the last full-time boards. He lost a bid for reelection in 1999. His political career, however, did not end with his failure to gain reelection in his hometown. He gained an appointment to the $14,000 a year seat on the Barnstable County Commissioners that Robert O’Leary held before he won election as a state senator.

In last fall’s election, it was Mr. Dupont’s attempt to retain the Commissioner seat he had been appointed to that resulted in his hand slapping from the OCPF’s Director Sullivan.

Mr. Dupont won a majority vote for County Commissioner in Bourne, but lost elsewhere on the Cape, so it is indeed possible he would be a very strong contender for a seat on the part-time board of selectmen, should he decide to run.

Yet undoubtedly any candidacy of Mr. Dupont’s will also revive a discussion of why the town felt the Charter was needed to correct inequities in the full-time board. As a very prominent member of one of the last three-member panels – each member earning some $45,000 a year in salary - Mr. Dupont can reasonably expect to be asked why he is interested in a seat on the current five-member part-time board, which receives only a small stipend annually, as well as whether he intends to abide by the election laws. Also, he would probably be asked to state whether he now supports the Bourne Charter that created the major changes in the Bourne’s government.

If Mr. Dupont runs, he will undoubtedly be given ample opportunity to answer these questions, in one or another open or public forum. Mr. Dupont might even be asked if there would be a particular irony in having to provide his views on the process, since it was a sense of closed-door procedures and insider high-handedness in the selectmen’s office that fueled the drive to create a new Bourne Charter and do away with the three-member full-time board of selectmen.