LIMESTONE, Maine — The town of Limestone held elections on June 10 to fill two vacant seats on the town’s board of selectpeople. Three candidates made it onto the ballot, all vying for an opportunity to serve a three-year term, as a representative of their town.
Only 24 hours after the voting concluded, the new board members officially began their new terms on June 11, where they deliberated for the first time at Limestone’s annual town meeting. The meeting was largely focused on the town’s budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
As previously mentioned, Tom Albert and Fred Pelletier were elected to the board of selectpeople, while Neal Leighton was re-elected to the Limestone Water and Sewer District’s board of trustees. As for the vote regarding the police department’s hours, the 18-hour option received 82 votes, while the 24-hour option received 148 votes, resulting in the department maintaining the prior 24-hour schedule.
On Tuesday morning, the selection of a moderator for the annual town meeting was completed, appointing Limestone resident Patrick St. Peter to fill said position. At approximately 6:30 p.m. St. Peter officially began the meeting, which started off with some early controversy.
The meeting began with an announcement by Town Manager Donna Bernier explaining that the board had decided to dedicate this year’s annual report to Leona Michaud, a former English teacher who recently retired after 42 years at the Limestone Community School.
Two of the first five articles addressed at the town meeting had previously been voted on by referendum on June 10. Those articles included the election of all town officials and the proposal to cut the working hours of the town’s police department from 24 to 18. This vote would soon cause a significant amount of drama, stemming from the amount of money being appropriated to the Limestone Police Department. The issue would boil over during the meeting, due to certain townspeople’s displeasure with having to pay for two police officers to attend the police academy later this year.
Article five on the list of warrants for this year’s meeting was in regard to the budget appropriations for the Limestone Police Department. The vote to change the police department’s hours from 24 to 18 was, as mentioned, completed the day before by referendum. On the secret-ballot, each hour option, whether 24 or 18 was also attached to an appropriation amount, designated by the budget committee. The proposed budget for the winning 24-hour option was $250,175. However, this confused a number of town voters, who were unaware that the June 10 referendum vote on the hours of the police station, also included previously established sums that were originally meant to be appropriated based on the result of the vote. As the 24-hour option was chosen by the voters, they were also choosing to approve the recommendation of $250,175 to be appropriated for the police department for the ensuing year.
Some citizens in attendance at the meeting were visibly opposed to the way in which the budget appropriation was not to be voted on as a separate article at the town meeting. One member of the town, in particular, Fred Griffeth spoke up about his displeasure with how the budget vote was not being addressed at the town meeting, and how he was not aware that he was voting on anything other than the option of whether or not to cut the police department hours back from 24 to 18.
“When I voted, I wasn’t voting on any budget numbers,” said Griffeth. “I was voting on the option of either 18 or 24 hours. This is an article for a town meeting. That was not a town meeting at the town hall yesterday. That was a vote. This is supposed to be handled at a town meeting.”
According to Bernier, this was the way the board of selectpeople decided to set up the referendum vote, so by the time of the town meeting Bernier could do nothing more than explain that this was how the vote read.
“We opened a town meeting at the town office yesterday at 8 a.m.,” said Bernier. “We elected a moderator, as part of article one, then we elected town officials and voted on article five, dealing with the police hours and budget.”
Griffeth responded with the argument that this was never how the town had chosen to hold the same vote in the past, and that the question could have easily be misinterpreted by voters.
Bernier explained the wording of the vote was simply an error, but she was not aware if anyone, board member or citizen could change the outcome of the vote at this point.
The disapproval raised the question of whether or not the town or the moderator had the ability to make a motion to appropriate an alternate amount for the police department budget. Board Chairman Tom Devoe calmly diffused the tense situation by explaining that if anyone had any disagreement at the town meeting, they could simply stand up and make a motion. Moderator St. Peter explained, that afterward, the board would get an official ruling to determine which vote holds legal precedence.
Devoe’s temporary ruling allowed Griffeth to propose an alternate motion, which he did, of $100,000 to be appropriated for the police department. The motion was made and seconded, but the motion did not accumulate the necessary votes to pass.
After the alternate vote failed, a motion was made to appropriate the originally established board recommendation of $250,175 to the police department. The motion was seconded, but before being voted on, discussion arose regarding why the police budget had increased from the previous year’s budget of $247,281.
Bernier responded by explaining the police department needed to send officers to the academy this year, which is where the extra cost is being accrued.
With the majority of the town’s departments and services going through budget cuts, this left some attendants of the town meeting unhappy with both the police station and the town’s officials. Chief Stacey Mahan, who was also in attendance at the meeting, was then asked by Griffeth how many officers need to be sent and how much it would cost to send those police officers to the academy, to which Mahan responded by telling town members the department would need to send two officers to the academy, costing the town a total of $32,000.
Griffeth then began to speak about why he disagrees with the town paying for the two officers to attend the police academy.
“$32,000 we’ve got to pay for somebody to … for policemen, when, I have to pay out of my own pocket to send my daughter to college to be a nurse or a teacher. Yet, we have to, as a town, keep paying people to go to this academy down there. It needs to stop. The Police Department is going to ruin the town, people,” said Griffeth
Chief Mahan then asked Griffeth if he recalled the last time the department had sent a police officer to the academy, to which Griffeth replied by saying, “It doesn’t matter, Stacey. That’s not the point. The point is, we shouldn’t have to educate a policeman [Sic],” said Griffeth “If you want to be a policeman, than you take it out of your pocket, and you pay for yourself to go to the academy.”
Chief Mahan again responded by asking if Griffeth could recall the last time a policeman had been sent to the academy, but was answered only by St. Peter, who got the meeting back on track by asking if there was any further discussion on the police department budget, but with no one else objecting, the vote would pass to appropriate $250,175 to the police department.
Griffeth left the meeting upon conclusion of the article 5 vote, and was not available for further comment. When speaking to Chief Mahan on Tuesday, he claimed the answer to the question he posed to Griffeth was a significant number of years.
“I can definitively say, that in the seven years that I’ve been back in Limestone we have not sent an officer to the full-time academy,” said Mahan. “As for before I took over as Chief, I don’t have an exact number on hand, but I’m confident saying it’s been at least 10 years before that.”
According to Bernier, who spoke about the situation later in the week, the error was on the part of the town officials for placing article 5 in the town meeting annual report to be voted on.
“It was our mistake, but legally the vote could have been changed during the town meeting, since the vote was in the annual report, to be voted on,” said Bernier. “If that were to ever happen again, we would have to omit the article from the annual report, at the town meeting, since it had already been voted on by referendum.”
Voting on articles 6-21 would conclude as follows:
The Fire Department will be appropriated $77,950 down from $79,100 last year;
The Library: $66,044 down from $67,005 last year;
Parks and Recreation Department: $76,410 down from $78,890 last year;
Insurance: $74,000 up from $73,330 last year;
Utility Services: $104,500 equal to last year;
Solid Waste Disposal: $47,500 equal to last year;
County Tax: $75,757 down from $78,862 last year;
Community Development: $0 equal to last year;
Social Services (ambulance, clinics, ACAP, etc…): $38,388 equal to last year;
Unclassified (Humane Society, Soil and Water Conservation, Radio Expense): $18,528 equal to last year;
Debt Retirement: $38,914;
Library Reserve Account: $2,500;
Public Works Reserve Account: $10,000 up from $0 last year;
Police Department Reserve Account: $4,000 up from $0 last year;
Revaluation Reserve Account: $5,000 up from $0 last year;
Revenue Sharing ($155,800), Income ($313,116), Surplus ($50,000), Police Revenue ($37,900), Local Road Assistance ($42,000): $598,816 down from $603,190 last year.
Voters also approved articles 22-28 as recommended.
