MECHANIC FALLS – If town officials decide to revert to holding town meetings on a Saturday, then May is the wrong time to meet.

The Town Council considered Monday how best to boost participation in the town’s annual gathering, in which voters decide on spending their local tax dollars. A recent survey showed Mechanic Falls voters would prefer a Saturday to the currently scheduled third Tuesday evening in May.

However, Councilman Oliver Emery pointed out that higher attendance on a weekend when the weather turns nice isn’t likely.

“If the goal is higher attendance, then I think May is the wrong month for a Saturday meeting,” said Emery. “That’s the beginning of prime season. We could do it in March, like we used to – it’s a kind of nothing month when you can’t yet work out in your yard or go fishing.”

Several unanswered questions during Monday’s public hearing, which drew no residents, prompted council members to postpone a decision. The issue will return to the council at its regular February meeting.

Council members directed Town Manager Dana Lee to research the practicality of holding local elections on the same day as town meeting if the switch were made to Saturday.

The town currently holds elections for local offices on the Monday before the Tuesday town meeting. Elections for officials are done by ballot. The town meeting is reserved for voter decisions on town and school funding and is done with public discussion and a show of hands.

Lee reported that many residents have complained that they find the two-day commitment an inconvenience.

Emery noted that Mechanic Falls at one time held elections directly after Saturday town meetings. However, there is no way to predict how long the annual meetings will last each year.

From 1991 to 1999, Mechanic Falls held its annual town meeting on a Saturday in June, according to town records. In that span, meetings drew a high attendance of 164 in 1994, when the meeting lasted seven hours; the low attendance for that period was 60 voters in 1997, when the meeting took 55 minutes.

Mechanic Falls went to a Tuesday evening meeting in May 2000. Attendance since then has fluctuated from a high of 140 out of 1,890 registered voters last year to a low of 77 in 2001. In 2002, the meeting was continued into the following Wednesday evening.

Town records show that meetings held on Saturdays in March did draw larger crowds, with a high of 212 voters in 1990 and a low of 104 in 1987.

However, unpredictable budget information from Maine’s Legislature too early in the funding cycle give local voters an incomplete picture of the town’s tax needs, said Lee.

“May is about the earliest, safe time to do town meeting,” said Lee. “We don’t even get real state education figures until after the 20th of April.”

Councilman Richard Wing suggested that town officials could deal with budget uncertainties in the form of a warrant article. Voters could require that any additional state education dollars that come in after the town meeting vote revert back to taxpayers instead of being carried over in a school fund balance, as was the practice in previous years. Lee agreed to research the possibility.