By Jen Otterson,Staff Writer

WATERFORD – The town is looking for a new selectman.

Chairman Norman Rust told a group of about 15 people attending Monday’s regular selectmen’s meeting that to continue with only two selectmen after the resignation of Whizzer Wheeler “wouldn’t be fair to the town of Waterford. Nor could we run the town from now to March.”

After Wheeler resigned last Wednesday, remaining selectmen David Marston and Rust faced either running the town themselves until the March town meeting, or holding a special election to fill Wheeler’s seat.

Anyone interested in the position can pick up the appropriate paperwork in the town office starting Tuesday morning. Candidates must collect the signatures of 25 registered voters before a deadline to be set no less than 14 days before the Sept. 6 election.

Polls will be open from noon until 8 p.m. on Sept. 6, which Marston explained seemed a better choice than having a special town meeting, at which polls would only be open for an hour or less.

Monday’s meeting, the first since Wheeler’s resignation, was noticeably tense. Members of the citizens’ group Take Back our Waterford sat in the audience with lists of questions for the two remaining selectmen.

Wheeler and former selectman Charles Fillebrown sat in the back, fielding questions that Rust and Marston couldn’t answer.

Newly appointed chairman Rust began the meeting by asking that anyone who would like to speak at a selectmen’s meeting call ahead to be put on the agenda. Rust conducted the meeting from his notes. No agenda was available.

Later, Rust interrupted the meeting to ask transfer station manager Rockie Graham if she was tape recording the meeting. Graham, who had a small tape recorder in her lap, answered that she was.

“I’d rather you shut the tape recorder off,” Rust told her. “There’s no need of it.”

Graham explained that she had asked Town Clerk Brenda Bigonski for copies of the minutes of the past few meetings and had been told that they were unavailable. As manager of the transfer station, Graham said she needs to know about decisions that affect her workplace and employees.

Rust and Bigonski told her that minutes would be made available to her.

Before closing the meeting, Rust addressed members of Take Back our Waterford directly, asking “Do you have a candidate lined up for the election?”

Paul Hersey replied for the group. He said that the group knew of someone who might run, but “just to make it perfectly clear, it’s not us that’s putting up a candidate.”