Residents who sued the town of Waldoboro over the method of a special town meeting have filed the first argument in their appeal with the state superior court.
A Lincoln County Court justice dismissed the suit late last year, ruling the plaintiff’s had no legal standing for their claims. The residents are appealing that decision to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in Portland.
Now that the residents have filed their argument, the town has until April 11 to respond. The residents will then have an opportunity to file another response.
The suit stems from a special town meeting in July 2011. When several town office budgets failed at the town meeting polls, town officials brought the items before voters at a special town meeting held by traditional open town meeting. Subsequent to several amendments, each of the department’s budgets passed at that meeting.
Last fall, nine residents filed a lawsuit against the town, arguing that the open town meeting violated a 2008 special town meeting vote, at which residents approved an article calling for all future town meetings to be held by referendum vote. The lawsuit argued the budget items approved at the open town meeting were invalid because the format violated the 2008 vote.
No hearings were held on the suit. In the town’s successful motion for dismissal, they argued that the residents failed to show any legitimate legal grounds for their position.
Justice Jeffery Hjelm agreed, and he dismissed the suit Nov. 14. Lincoln County Superior Court received the ruling Nov. 28.
In his ruling, Hjelm writes that the suit was dismissed because, “Any effort to regulate municipal voting methods” except by town charter violates state law. Waldoboro does not have a town charter. “…the 2008 ordinance that purports to establish a voting procedure is of no effect, because it is not one of the ways that such a format can be established,” Hjelm wrote.
The residents – Dennis Blanchet, Travis Reed, Michael Robitaille, John Higgins, Doreen Weiss, Wallace Walton, Patricia Chapman, Duncan Morrell and Scott Dupuis – filed their notice of appeal with Lincoln County Superior Court on Dec. 14.
The appeal argues that language in state law allows for ordinances to set voting methods without a charter.
“We are asking the law court to address voting and home rule issues more broadly than the limited scope focused on by the Superior Court justice,” said Clifford Goodall, the attorney representing the residents, when they initially announced their appeal.
Although a number of Maine towns have adopted voting method ordinances similar to Waldoboro’s, the Maine Supreme Judicial court has never addressed the issue of a town’s right to address voting method by ordinance rather than a charter, Goodall said.
