More than 430 voters attended a special town meeting on allocating funds and a petitioned recall ordinance at Paris Elementary School on Thursday.

PARIS — A proposal to replace the town’s recall ordinance with a revised version was overwhelmingly defeated Thursday at a special town meeting that drew more than 480 voters.

Resident Greg Harris, who presented the document to selectmen at their Dec. 28 meeting, said he believed the current ordinance, which was approved in a 1,555 to 537 referendum vote in November, was being used as a “tool or a weapon” by “a few select members of this community.”

The town’s Policy and Procedures Committee wrote the recall ordinance, which allows for the scheduling of elections to potentially remove elected officials other than school board directors. The town has since received petitions for the recall of four selectmen and has scheduled two elections to address the petitions. An election to see whether voters will recall Chairman David Ivey and Selectman Lloyd “Skip” Herrick has been set for Feb. 1, and an election to see whether voters will recall Selectmen Raymond Glover and Troy Ripley has been set for Feb. 5.

Harris said the recall ordinance in place was not compliant with state law, did not protect against the removal of a quorum on the board and could allow residents to seek the removal of officials for petty reasons.

The petitioned ordinance under consideration Thursday sought to impose stricter standards for the recall of officials, including the stipulation that conviction of an illegal act or failure to perform an official duty would be the only grounds for recall, Harris said. The document also stated that an official could only be removed if two-thirds of the votes cast in a recall election favored removal and if the votes in the recall election exceeded the number the official received in the original election.

Harris’ petition intended to stop the two recall elections and to nullify the current ordinance. He said he saw the result of the November referendum as an approval of a recall ordinance but not necessarily the one that was presented by the Policy and Procedures Committee.

“I am not trying to recall the recall ordinance,” Harris said. “I would never do such a thing.” 

Resident Janet Jamison said she believes the current recall ordinance needs revisions, but she did not think Harris’ proposal was adequate. She said the section that would have nullified the previous ordinance appeared to be directly asking for state law to be set aside. She also said the strong support for the recall ordinance in November resulted from dissatisfaction with the Board of Selectmen, particularly its decision to terminate former Town Manager Sharon Jackson’s contract in June.

Voters also turned down an article that would have approved borrowing up to $240,000 over a five-year period to conduct a town-wide revaluation. John Brushwein, who left his role as Paris assessor on Dec. 11, formerly said it would take until 2013 for him to individually complete a revaluation and correct errors resulting from one that was completed in 2007. He said such a process could be completed within a year and would cost an estimated $225,000 if it were contracted out.

 A revaluation would account for any decrease in property values and would also allow the town to save $19,000 through the use of a part-time rather than a full-time assessor, Herrick said, adding that he supported the article as long as the money was borrowed and repaid over time.

Critics of the article said it was nonessential and would be an added burden to the town.

 
Townspeople voted 140-186 against using $18,600 from subdivision fees to repair or replace a wood and steel suspension bridge over the Little Androscoggin River. Shane Wilson, a member of the town’s Recreation Committee, said the allocation would not be in line with the intent of the fees and that they could be used for other purposes such as the repair of safety equipment used by the municipal baseball teams.

Voters approved the use of $38,525 to buy a new 2,500-gallon tank for the Fire Department’s tanker truck. Chief Brad Frost of the Paris Fire Department reported to selectmen in October that the former tank, a converted oil container donated by CN Brown, was scrapped after it was found to have sprung a leak. The money for the replacement will be taken from an insurance settlement the town received following the collapse of a portion of the former fire station on Pine Street in 2008.

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