JAY – Selectmen tabled action Tuesday on conducting an exit poll Nov. 2 to gauge voters’ interest on buying a new firetruck and building a town office.

Voters have rejected both items in the past, and selectmen want to know if they’re interested in funding either project before putting them on the ballot again. Both projects have reserve accounts.

However, Chairman Bill Harlow said he has heard concerns about a negative impact if voters were asked how they feel about spending money on big-ticket items the same day they’ve cast ballots on the Palesky tax-cap initiative.

“I’m just not sure it’s going to be a true representation,” Harlow said.

Selectman Rick Simoneau said one of the ideas that came out of an ad hoc committee on buying a new firetruck was doing an exit poll to get a feel for the voters’ interest.

He doesn’t want to bring it back if voters are not interested, he said.

Selectman Ray Pineau said he would like a box in the survey that states “need to have more information.”

Simoneau said that although the Palesky initiative is “bad,” Election Day would be a good time to get input from the majority of the voters. He expects 80 percent of the registered voters to cast ballots Nov. 2, Simoneau said.

Resident Al Landry said that a poll could be conducted on a Friday and Saturday outside of the Hannaford supermarket.

Resident Ellen Levesque said there would only be seven weeks between the Nov. 2 vote and the start of the town’s budget talks.

“I don’t think they’re going to change their minds,” Levesque said.

Regardless of how the Palesky initiative goes, she said, you would get the most information Nov. 2.

Town Manager Ruth Marden said the independent audit of the Fire Rescue Department’s equipment, trucks and the needs of the department would not be completed before the election.

“If we’re not going to have the information by Nov. 2, that changes things,” Simoneau said.

Landry volunteered to get a couple people together to do an exit poll whatever way the town decides to survey residents.

Pineau motioned to table the discussion until Monday, Oct. 25.

Simoneau requested that once the audit on the department comes back that something be put in the newspaper explaining it.

Marden said that ads could be formatted to include the poll, and people could send them to the town office, bring them in or call in results.

She also said that the two articles could be left almost to hearing time in February.