From now on, Alna resident Chris Cooper will need to keep expletives out of his emails to the town, if Third Selectman David Reingardt is going to read them.

Reingardt on Dec. 3 told fellow board members and Town Clerk Amy Warner he does not want to receive any more of Cooper’s emails if they contain vulgar language.

“I refuse to accept vulgar emails (in which) he chooses to practice his First Amendment right. I’m practicing my right to civility,” Reingardt said. He will not take part in the board’s discussions of any of Cooper’s emails that he doesn’t read, he added.

“Understand where I’m at on this,” he asked.

“Sounds good,” Second Selectman Jonathan Villeneuve said.

Reingardt’s statements at the board’s Dec. 3 meeting came the same day as Cooper, a longtime town meeting moderator in Alna and a former Alna selectman,  emailed the board about potholes near where Rabbit Path and Bailey roads meet.

The email followed Cooper’s Oct. 20 one about the same problem. The October email states that a vicious nest of potholes was ruining vehicles’ front ends. He and fellow former selectman David Seigars filled the holes in 2013, according to the email.

It goes on to suggest the holes be filled again. “Or not. I’m just imagining what I might do were I ever to mistake owning a selectman’s seat as a wise use of my few remaining hours on Earth,” it concludes. The email contains no expletives.

Cooper’s Dec. 3 email again seeks the potholes’ filling and criticizes town officials for not filling them after his first email.

“I know the road account has enough money to do this job ... (A) timely application of a small amount of resources will almost always delay or reduce the necessity of rebuilding, resurfacing or larger repairs,” Cooper writes.

Cooper uses an expletive phrase in restating what he said when he encountered the potholes on a recent drive.

“I plunged my truck into caverns broader and deeper than those I complained of so politely six weeks ago. At impact I cried out (expletive). That this blasphemy could be drawn from a citizen through the inaction, inattention or incompetence of his own municipality in this most Christian of all nations I am sure must disturb you as much as it would any proper overseer of the public good,” Cooper writes.

First Selectman David Abbott said he contacted Road Commissioner Jeff Verney after Cooper’s Oct. 20 email. Verney said he has been checking on the section of road he thought Cooper was referring to, but that it may have gotten worse since he last saw it. He planned to fill the area in with gravel on Dec. 4.

Cooper was not at the board’s meeting. In a telephone interview Dec. 4, he said he did not plan to change how he writes his emails to the town.

“That’s fine,” he said about Reingardt’s decision.

“I am who I am,” Cooper said. Some residents like the way he writes, he added.