PARIS – A special forum on the Palesky tax-cap initiative generated little attention Thursday.

An audience of about 30 people was dominated by representatives of the event’s sponsors, which included SAD 17 and the towns of Norway, Waterford, Harrison and Oxford.

As Norway Town Manager Dave Holt spoke of the need for more voter participation instead of desperate measures like the Palesky tax cap, his words fell on rows of empty seats in the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School forum.

“Once a year we have 100 people out of 5,000 come in and vote on what they want, and that’s what I do,” Holt said, speaking of Norway’s town meeting, where the budget is set each year.

If the tax cap passes, he said, residents will be very unhappy. “It’s unrealistic to expect that you’re going to have more police protection and more fire protection and all of the roads fixed up and pay half for it.”

Every year, Norway Selectman Bob Walker added, the town manager makes a budget request and the selectmen and budget committee reduce it. “And yet the people by town meeting vote a higher budget than any of us recommended, because of the services they’d like,” he said.

Norway resident Norman Belanger said he didn’t think the Palesky tax cap “had a snowball’s chance in Hell of passing,” but asked pointed questions about school staffing, Norway’s role in the revitalization of the C.B. Cummings Dowel Mill, and also about SAD 17 Superintendent Mark Eastman’s salary.

Eventually, Holt asked Belanger if he had ever appeared at a town meeting.

“No,” Belanger responded.

“If you think we spend too much money, you should come and vote,” Holt said.

Only Waterford Selectman Whizzer Wheeler had something positive to say about the tax cap. Last year the town asked voters for $50,000 to repair a bridge before any estimates had been requested, he said.

People need to be given the opportunity to vote on more individual line items in budgets, he said, and should have more choices.

In the instance of the bridge, Wheeler said, “We didn’t have any idea what a bid would be. … We voted it, we asked the townspeople, and they gave it to us. That’s wrong.”

However, Wheeler and the other officials present agreed voters will lose local control of their tax dollars if they support the tax cap.