BETHEL — Selectmen have scheduled a special board meeting at 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19 in the town office to review a final contract for police coverage with the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office.

Following discussion on Sheriff Wayne Gallant’s proposed contract, they are then expected to vote on Selectman Dennis Doyon’s tabled — but still valid — motion from Tuesday night’s board meeting to OK the contract, Doyon said early Wednesday evening.

But it’s anyone’s guess as to what the board’s final decision will be.

“It will depend on what happens Friday,” Doyon said.

After a 45-minute executive session with town attorney Geoff Hole at Tuesday’s meeting, selectmen spent 2½ hours discussing what to do about last week’s special town meeting majority vote and a petition submitted prior to the meeting, according to a recording of the meeting.

In the 104-89 decision at the Feb. 9 special town meeting, townspeople authorized selectmen to negotiate and enter into a contract with the Sheriff’s Office to provide coverage to the town. Bethel’s police department is then to be disbanded. However, resident Scott Harlow, who was unhappy with the balloting procedure and outcome, collected 216 valid signatures on his petition to seek a revote of the issue.

On Tuesday night, with the petition before them but none of the petitioners, Selectman Don Bennett got the discussion going by motioning to table action on the contract and schedule a referendum vote at the annual town meeting June 9.

Bennett said that with the petition before them, he didn’t think the board could ignore it, despite the majority vote Feb. 9.

“Obviously, this is to get to a point where we can have some discussion on this,” said Bennett, about the need to determine how to fund the change.

“I quite frankly think this whole concept of the sheriff’s department providing us with services will fly,” Bennett said. “I think it has once, and unfortunately, we have this development.”

Selectman Robert Everett quickly sided with Bennett, saying he also had reservations about funding after learning that what the town had previously appropriated for local police coverage might not be allowed to be transferred to pay for county coverage.

If that’s so, he said the town would have to dip into the general fund through an overdraft to pay for coverage, something he isn’t prepared to do.

Doyon and Selectman Jack Cross both said they’d vote against tabling action on the contract until June, because they respected the Feb. 9 majority vote and the people who came out to vote both for and against it.

“I’m respectful of everybody who has signed the petition … 49 of which showed up at the town meeting,” Doyon said.

“You have to be respectful of all who voted, and of the democratic process to take their time to come out, and they voted, and I don’t know how you can ever ask any citizen in the town of Bethel to ever come out once again to a special town meeting if all it takes is a petition for a revote if somebody doesn’t like the outcome.”

“To outright nullify that vote is disrespectful to all the voters whether they voted for it or against it,” he said.

“We should go with the way the people vote,” Cross said. “If they want 24 (hour) coverage, they’re still going to get it. I just don’t understand why they have a problem with it.”

Board Chairman Stan Howe sided with Bennett, saying he had “agonized terribly over this issue.”

He said that though he supports the majority vote and the people who signed the petition, he would work “very hard” to ensure that the vote passes in June.

“If it goes the other way, then we’ll just have to accept that, too,” Howe said. “Democracy is not a pretty process.”

Doyon and Cross disagreed and argued their points, and then Howe took comment from the public, which took both sides as well.

Finally, Bennett withdrew his motion, Everett rescinded his second and then Doyon motioned to sign the contract.

They didn’t take any action on the petition.

The board then took Sheriff Gallant’s proposed contract line by line, tweaking it to fit Bethel before it was tabled to Friday.

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