MEXICO – Tasked by selectmen with drafting an ordinance to cover secret balloting on town meeting warrant articles, members of the Planning Board did everything but that for more than two hours at Thursday night’s meeting.
Attempts were even made to give the issue back to selectmen or figure out a way to rescind the majority vote on June 13 that switched town meeting voting from a show of hands to secret ballot at the following day’s polls. Or, to somehow rescind the secret ballot method and switch to a charter style of government like Rumford.
But, by 8:25 p.m., planners unanimously voted to schedule another meeting at 6 p.m. on July 27 to start doing what they were to have started Thursday night.
Planning Board Chairman Daniel Casey said after the meeting that planners didn’t have any information to enable them to do what was asked of them.
The board also voted unanimously to have the Referendum Committee make copies of the ordinance its members drafted available to planners and selectmen by Wednesday, July 5, to use as a starting point.
Prior to that vote, member Reggie Arsenault, who is also a Mexico selectman, got into an argument with two committee members, Marjorie Richard and Gary Coffin, over the ordinance document, of which there was only one copy and the person who had it was in Canada.
The idea behind drafting an ordinance, Town Manager John Madigan and others pointed out, was to prevent Mexico from being shut down like Livermore Falls should town meeting voters reject a proposed municipal budget, or portions of it.
About 30 minutes into the meeting, Arsenault, speaking louder than normal, accused people who voted for the secret ballot referendum of taking away his right to increase or decrease proposed budget articles at town meeting.
At times, Casey reminded Richard and Coffin that the meeting was a regular planning board meeting, not an open forum. At other times, he allowed the meeting to proceed open-forum style.
When Arsenault attempted to get planners to put the matter back in the hands of selectmen and allow them to start the process to switch to a charter style of government, resident Randy Canwell stopped him.
“This talk has gone from positively looking at getting a charter to not to have a charter and to do away with the secret ballot,” Canwell said.
But Arsenault continued to ask Madigan for advice on how to override the secret ballot method voted in.
Richard and Coffin said planners should follow the will of the majority who voted to switch methods.
Selectman George Byam agreed, trying to put the discussion back on track.
“You need to go through with this whether you like it or not,” Byam said.
Semantics were then argued until another off-topic derailment occurred, during which Arsenault again argued with Richard about the experience of the lawyer who helped the Referendum Committee draft their possible ordinance. Casey tried in vain to get the discussion back on track.
Comments are no longer available on this story