By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

POLAND – Frustrated and fed up, a handful of Poland men turned in petitions signed by residents Monday asking for a vote on whether selectmen should be kicked out of office.

Town Clerk Judith Akers said as of 6:30 p.m. Monday, people had collected 316 signatures. However, the signatures had not been verified at that time, Akers said.

They need 197 signatures, or 10 percent of the local turnout for the last gubernatorial election, the town clerk said.

If the number of signatures needed is collected and verified, the petition will go to selectmen, who will then decide if there will be a vote to oust them, Akers said.

Taxpayers soliciting signatures are unhappy about a $2.7 million deficit, and how that deficit has been handled by officials, especially selectmen Chairwoman Sandra Knowles.

“It’s the way she’s treating people in meetings,” said signature collector Paul Harrison. “When people try to talk at selectmen’s meetings, she won’t let them talk. People want to stand up and make comments. She’s not letting them. It’s very volatile,” he said.

Residents watch the meetings on the cable channel, and are “appalled,” he said.

That frustration is on top of the $2.7 million deficit that residents worry will spike their property taxes.

Town officials have said the deficit, which was discovered in February, was a human error that resulted from how tax-increment finance agreements with Poland Spring Water Co. were calculated. The mistake goes back six years and it’s the cumulative effect that created the $2.7 million deficit.

The error has kept property taxes artificially low, officials said. Artificially low taxes have led voters to approve more spending, Harrison complained.

Officials should have told voters about the deficit before voters approved a municipal budget of $3.75 million on April 29, he said. If the problem was disclosed, “maybe we would have been tighter with the tax dollars.”

It’s time for new blood, said Harrison, himself a former selectman candidate.

On Monday, Knowles declined to comment.

“I have nothing to say on that, absolutely nothing,” she said.

Selectman Reginald Jordan did.

Jordan pointed out that two persons gathering signatures, Harrison and Mark Ferguson, “have run for selectmen and couldn’t get in,” he said Monday. He questioned whether they were being “vindictive.”

Jordan acknowledged that at one meeting Knowles “shut them off,” not allowing questions or comment. “They continually hammer on the same thing,” he said. Selectmen know there’s a problem and are working on it, he said. “They’ve got to give us room to work.”

During two selectmen meetings the Sun Journal recently covered, Knowles’ behavior did offend some.

At one meeting Knowles said she notified three board members, but not a fourth, that she was negotiating with Poland Spring. When Wendy Sanborn, who was not notified, asked Knowles why she was omitted, Knowles said: “It was my choice.”

“That’s illegal,” Sanborn and some residents cried.

On May 20, after auditor Bruce Nadeau explained how the deficit happened, Sanborn and several audience members asked why the town moved forward with the town spending vote April 29, knowing there was a large deficit.

“Because we did,” Knowles responded. Audience members grumbled loudly.

That behavior is “overbearing,” Harrison said. Selectmen who don’t answer questions or allow comments are “not right. They work for us. We pay the tax dollars.”

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