RUMFORD – A petition asking for secret-ballot votes and elimination of the annual town meeting was given to the town clerk Thursday.
At Thursday’s selectmen’s meeting, Town Manager Steve Eldridge said the signatures have been verified, and the petition will now go to the town’s lawyer for her opinion on its legality. That decision should be made by the end of the week.
Nearly 850 signatures were gathered on the petition, which says that town meeting votes by a show of hands does not reflect the will of the community because most attending have special interests and personal agendas.
Seth Carey, one of the advocates of the petition, said Thursday night that if the change is approved, it would go into effect in 2007.
Eldridge said on Friday that the town’s charter calls for an annual town meeting. Before the meeting can be eliminated, a change in the charter would have to occur, and that calls for the creation of a Charter Commission.
He said selectmen have been discussing creation of a Charter Commission to study a possible change to a town council form of government. If the petition is found to be legal, he said the town meeting elimination issue would also be studied.
He said he won’t ask the board to accept the petition until he knows whether it is legal.
When a similar petition was submitted to Mexico selectmen last week, Carey was in attendance to try and persuade the board to put the petition before voters. At that time, the Mexico board voted 4-0 to take it under advisement.
Eldridge said that if traditional town meeting articles are voted on in referendum, they would likely have to be condensed. Rumford’s warrant generally has about 40 articles.
He said that if the petition is found legal, voters would act on it in a referendum in June 2006.
Also on Thursday, selectmen voted to extend downtown parking to three hours, rather than two, through the December holiday season.
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