POLAND – Selectmen agreed to place two controversial articles aimed at restricting residential growth on the annual town meeting warrant Tuesday night, but voted unanimously to recommend that voters reject both.
The board responded to a petition with 199 signatures requesting that they place articles on the warrant to resurrect a 1978 ordinance that placed a one-year moratorium on subdivisions and another to slow non-subdivision residential growth. The petition called the need an “emergency.”
City Attorney Bryan Dench, of Skelton, Taintor & Abbott of Auburn, recommended that the board place the articles on the warrant with the addition of a 180-day limit as the only change to conform to a current state statute. “If you refuse to put it on the warrant, the petitioners could file a lawsuit in Superior Court asking the judge to order you to put it on the warrant,” Dench said. “By putting it on the warrant, you are not endorsing it. You are not opposing it.”
If voters approve the restrictions, selectmen can extend the 180-day limit by another 180 days, Dench added.
The board declined to draft an alternative ordinance, which had been discussed as an option.
Selectman Wendy Sanborn cast the sole dissenting vote on the residential growth ordinance. Sanborn and Chairman Glenn Peterson voted against the subdivision article.
Selectmen questioned Dench about qualifications of several voters who signed the petition. The attorney responded that some of the signatures the board questioned are valid, and that there are enough qualified signatures to make the petition legal and valid.
“There seems to be a lot of questions in this petition,” Peterson said. “I can’t agree with the word emergency’ in the petition.”
“I think some people signed the petition without knowing what they were signing,” said Sanborn.
“I truly believe the people that signed it put their trust in the people that asked them to sign it,” said Selectman David Corcoran.
Code Enforcement Officer Arthur Dunlap said more than 60 new dwellings have been added annually since 2000. Poland is one of the fastest growing municipalities in Maine.
A warrant article that would establish restrictions on more than one member of the same family holding public office also received a 3-2 vote, placing it before the voters.
School Committee member Ira “Ike” Levine accused the board of targeting him and his wife. Both are members of the School Committee. “Is this the keep-two-Levines-off-the-school-board ordinance?” he asked the board, calling the article a personal attack.
Peterson responded that it is not personal.
“It is personal,” Levine said.
Selectman Reginald “Bud” Jordan said he was not consulted before some members of the board asked Dench to draft the article. “I’m a selectman and nobody contacted me about this,” Jordan said.
The annual town meeting will be held April 30.
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