The Combat Sports Authority of Maine has recently received criticism for failing to file annual reports and for controversial cartoons allegedly on chairman Hal Pierce’s private Facebook page.
CSAM received no funding and is instead funded by 5 percent of ticket sales. Board members are compensated $35 per diem for any event or meeting, and are eligible to receive a travel and expense allowance. The board typically meets every month or two, so there is potential to become an actual hundredaire.
We are a small group of very hard-working Mainers that have tried to keep professional combat sports rolling in Maine, wrote secretary Bill Bouffard to Glenn Jordan for CentralMaine.com. Many hours, no pay, somewhat frequent turnover. Don’t only paint the bad picture. There’s a lot of good work done by very few individuals on their own dime and time.
CSAM was established by the Legislature in June 2009 and is required to file an annual report each year by March 15 to the Legislature’s Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business Committee, detailing “an evaluation of the authority’s success in meeting the goals, outcomes and performance expectations contained in its business plan, as well as a summary of the revenue and expenditures.”
The last report was apparently submitted in 2012. Drafts were drawn up by Bouffard in 2014 and 2016, but he’s uncertain if the board’s chairman submitted then to the Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business Committee. In sum, that complaint is a nothing burger.
Another complaint received national coverage.
Pierce reportedly posted anti-Muslim cartoons on his Facebook page. In one, the word infidel appears over an American flag and an image of bacon; it reads Pork Fact #76: People who eat bacon are less likely to blow themselves up. Another references a conspiracy theory that Muslim refugees are entering the United States to kill all those who do not submit to Islam. A third says a Moslem [sic] in Congress will destroy us from within.
Although the Facebook page is private, a screenshot was sent to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. CAIR has called for Pierce to resign.
Spokesperson Lindsay Crete reported that as of Friday, the governor’s office was still looking into the allegations from CAIR.
Bouffard said Pierce never said or did anything racist in the presence of other board members.
We would not have tolerated it, wrote Bouffard. And I also don’t believe that’s who Hal is. I think he made a bad choice. And has to deal with it. Hal has only been on the board a couple years and has actually tried hard to pick up the pieces and bring it all back together.
Bobby Russo, owner of the Portland Boxing Club, said Pierce comes to his gym about once a week probably and comes in and does a workout. I’ve found him to be a nice guy and I’ve never heard him say anything racist. Russo also related an event over a year ago, when Pierce gave him a cash donation.
We have a lot of immigrant kids who come in, said Russo. He knows those guys don’t really pay any dues. He said this is for the immigrant kids who don’t pay any dues, for whatever they need, headgear or whatever.
