Several Waldoboro residents have filed suit against the town, asking the court to negate the results of a June special town meeting and order the town to hold a new vote.
Citing a November 2008 referendum special town meeting, at which voters approved an article calling for all future town meetings to be held by referendum, the plaintiffs argue that the June 2011 special town meeting was invalid because it was held by traditional open town meeting.
Although the suit deals only with this year’s special town meeting, the issue has built from a series of incidents over the last few years.
In the last decade, Waldoboro has – by public vote – switched between open town meeting and referendum voting three times. In that time, no article prescribing a voting method – whether referendum or open – for town meeting in Waldoboro has failed.
The 2008 vote is the most recent article voters passed, and the plaintiffs argue it binds town officials to referendum voting.
In 2010, the town meeting was held by referendum. Several department budgets failed, as did an article granting enough money to operate departments for three months if voters rejected the department’s budget.
The Waldoboro Board of Selectmen called an open town meeting to address the failed department budgets. By state law, an open town meeting may be called with less lead time than a referendum vote.
At the time, selectmen said the only reason they were calling for an open town meeting was because they didn’t have three months budget needed to prepare for referendum.
At the open town meeting, all departments’ budgets passed as originally proposed. Many residents expressed dissatisfaction, calling the process unfair because the same budgets rejected at the polls were passed at open town meeting by a much smaller number of voters.
Selectmen said at the time they, too, were uncomfortable with the process and would rather have held the meeting by referendum, but that an open town meeting was a necessity due to the time crunch.
This June, the town meeting was again held by referendum and again several department budgets failed. This time, however, Article 3 granting three months budget for failed departments passed.
Selectmen again called an open town meeting, this time citing concerns about how to inform voters about the issues and how to develop a budget number without voters’ input.
In the opinion of the selectmen this year, only by holding an open town meeting could the issues be properly resolved and voted on by an informed public.
Selectmen and residents in favor of open town meeting said there is no way to know exactly why voters said ‘no’ to the budgets.
Some voters may have wanted to eliminate the department entirely; some may have wanted a $5000 reduction, selectmen said. Some supporters of open town meeting pointed out that, although unlikely, it’s possible that residents voted against the budget because they thought it should be higher.
“We can’t interpret a ‘no'” became a common refrain as town officials debated the method for this year’s special town meeting.
Dennis Blanchet, one of the residents named as a plaintiff in the suit, said he felt the decision to hold an open town meeting constitutes an outright lie on the part of the selectmen.
“They told us if we voted for Article 3, we would have a referendum vote if there was a special town meeting,” Blanchet said. “We voted for Article 3, and they still decided to have an open town meeting.”
Nearly 350 residents turned out for the open special town meeting. At that meeting, two of the departments’ budgets were lowered, and the rest passed as originally proposed, albeit most by slim margins following lengthy discussions and typically multiple attempts to amend them. In total, after the five-hour-plus meeting, voters shaved just over $40,000 from the proposed $3,591,072 budget.
In an Aug. 5 filing with the Lincoln County Superior Court, nine residents – Blanchet, Travis Reed, Michael Robitaille, John Higgins, Doreen Weiss, Wallace Walton, Patricia Chapman, Duncan Morrell and Scott Dupuis – have requested that the court declare the special town meeting invalid, as well as any tax bills issued using the budget passed at the special town meeting.
Blanchet said they feel hundreds of voters were disenfranchised by the open town meeting vote. He pointed out that just over 900 voters participated in the referendum town meeting – many by absentee ballot – and nearly 350 came to the open town meeting.
Town officials responded that everyone had the right to attend the open town meeting.
Although the town has not filed an official response to the suit in court, town officials said throughout the town meeting process and in telephone interviews regarding the suit that the town was operating according to a 2006 legal opinion written by the Maine Municipal Association.
That opinion, printed in Maine Townsman in January 2006, states that only a charter may create any binding regulations regarding a town’s voting methods, and final authority for choosing the voting method at any town meeting rests with the board of selectmen.
Waldoboro does not have a town charter.
According to MMA’s article, with the exception of certain business, such as the election of town officers, “…a directive to use the secret ballot method of voting … is not legally binding unless it is contained in a municipal charter.”
Any town meeting article regarding voting method should be taken as a recommendation to the selectmen, but not a binding rule, MMA wrote.
One reason for this, MMA wrote, is that by state law each town meeting is a separate legislative body whose authority ends when the meeting adjourns. Therefore, “…while one meeting may vote that all future meetings use the secret ballot referendum process, a later meeting may legally ignore this vote and vote by open meeting instead,” MMA wrote. Each town meeting is a distinct legislative body, “separately called, separately convened, under separate warrants.”
Another reason articles dictating voting methods are not legally binding outside of a charter, according to MMA, is that state law specifically provides the two methods of voting and vests the authority to choose between them in the selectmen.
So, according to MMA, when Waldoboro voters approved the 2008 article calling for referendum voting, they were offering their opinion to the selectmen, but not creating a binding requirement.
Clifford Goodall, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, disagrees. A voting method ordinance should be binding with or without a charter, he said.
Although the 2008 voting method article does not specifically refer to the creation of an ordinance, “an ordinance is anything that passes that governs the way the town operates,” Goodall said. Particularly when the article was placed on the warrant by petition, he said, as was the 2008 voting article.
Goodall said his opinion is driven by Home Rule, state law governing the legality of local ordinances, which states that anything passed at a local level that doesn’t violate state law should be implemented “based on the obvious intent of the voters.”
The suit calls for reconsideration of any tax bills issued based on the special town meeting vote. Town officials said they have no plans to delay the bills, which are likely to go out by the end of this month.
“It may be a number of months before this is decided,” Goodall said. “I certainly wouldn’t advise anyone not to pay their taxes.”
