DIXFIELD — The town has not had an official road commissioner for the past few weeks, and will likely not have an appointment until a fifth selectman is elected in November, Town Manager Eugene Skibitsky said.

“The new board has not acted on an appointment because the votes have been tied,” he said.

Since 1983, when the town voted to establish a town manager-selectmen form of government, whoever served as town manager was also the road commissioner.

When the board appointed its various annual positions a several weeks ago, the board split on appointing Skibitsky, with Selectmen Mac Gill and Bob Withrow voting for the reappointment, and newly elected Selectmen Hart Daley and Scott Belskis voting against.

The fifth selectman’s seat had been held by Katharine Harvey who resigned in early August and moved out of town.

Belskis has indicated that he wants the job.Although he would not provide specific reasons for wanting the position, he said earlier this week that his confidence in how the job is done is part of it.

“It’s internal,” he said.

Skibitsky said he was “perplexed and flummoxed” by the ongoing split vote for what has been a routine appointment.

An opinion supplied by Maine Municipal Association’s legal department, signed by Richard Flewelling and Becky Seel, indicated that although there is no specific law in Maine against a single selectman serving as a road commissioner, “We … strongly recommend that someone other than a selectperson be appointed as road commissioner if the town manager will not continue to serve in that capacity.”

The four-page email from the MMA listed several reasons for its recommendation including, “It could be awkward and problematic from a management standpoint for a selectman to be both the town manager’s boss and his employee.”

The email also stated, “… that the offices of road commissioner and selectperson are incompatible, since one person clearly cannot sit in judgment of his own appeal as a member of an appeal body.”

Skibitsky said routine highway work, guided by working foreman David Phair, has continued throughout the summer.

Nomination papers for the one year remaining in Harvey’s term are due back at the Town Office by Sept. 21. So far, former Selectman Norine Clarke, Planning Board member Norman Mitchell, and Common Road resident, Dana Whittemore, have taken out papers.