state statute requires<\/a> municipal officials try and avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, and requires municipal officials to disclose any conflicts of interest where they may benefit financially in a vote or contract.<\/p>\nA search of town records shows one other instance of a vehicle going to Perk\u2019s; a vehicle was brought there for an inspection in October, at a cost of $12.50.<\/p>\n
Perkins said he never knows what vehicles are in his shop, and he doesn\u2019t have any influence over where the town sends its vehicles. He said Roderick just wants to cause trouble.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a s\u2013t-stirring contest,\u201d Perkins said. \u201cMy shop costs less than 90% of the shops around here, so I save the town of Oakland a lot of money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perkins said he doesn\u2019t believe the town broke any laws. \u201cHow is that a conflict of interest?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like we use them for everything we do,\u201d Town Manager Kelly Pinney-Michaud said at the meeting, after Roderick said she thought the town had violated state law. \u201cIt\u2019s when we can get in quick to get something fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vehicle, a police cruiser, is being readied for a new full-time detective in the police department; funding to move the position from part time to full time was approved earlier this year at town meeting.<\/p>\n
Police Lt. Adam Sirois said the cruiser still needs various updates before department\u2019s new detective can drive it. It\u2019s not clear when the car will be back on the road, as Sirois said he\u2019s planning to do more repairs on the car himself when he has time.<\/p>\n
Perkins posted about the repair on Facebook on July 2, writing that he wanted to get ahead of the Morning Senintel\u2019s reporting. Perkins described the work as an emergency repair, and said that the vehicle was back in service in three days, saving the town time and money.<\/p>\n
Sirois said the cruiser spent two weeks at Perk\u2019s Auto, with the repairs themselves taking one week. He said Perkins told him that he only learned the car was at Perk\u2019s when his mechanics were already working on it.<\/p>\n
The town does not have a policy to avoid using Perk\u2019s Auto, and Sirois said he uses whichever mechanic has availability and will be quickest, giving preference to local shops. There are dozens of mechanics in the Oakland area, and Pinney-Michaud said the town usually tries to get cars fixed at dealerships first, and makes an effort to avoid using Perk\u2019s Auto unless there\u2019s an emergency situation. <\/p>\n
Perkins and Pinney-Michaud both said the payments to Perk\u2019s Auto are not newsworthy.<\/p>\n
Roderick and Perkins did not sign the financial disbursement warrant that authorizes the town\u2019s treasurer to pay the bill, as a majority of councilors did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perk\u2019s Auto Sales and Service is shown Thursday at 1015 Kennedy Memorial Drive in Oakland. (Rich Abrahamson\/Staff Photographer)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-388978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/43681441_20260702_03autoDSC_6645_.jpg\")
\t\t\tPerk\u2019s Auto Sales and Service is shown Thursday at 1015 Kennedy Memorial Drive in Oakland. (Rich Abrahamson\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n