RUMFORD — Eleven Rumford residents filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Rumford Board of Selectmen over an alleged violation of the town charter.

The plaintiffs filed the complaint Friday at Oxford County Superior Court against the Board of Selectmen. In a news release by plaintiff Philip Blampied, he said that the injunction asks “the court to override the board’s rejection of a legally drafted petition for a special town meeting to consider a spending cap.”

Local activist group SAVE Rumford has brought a revised tax-relief petition that seeks to impose a spending cap of $6.2 million.

At a July 17 selectmen meeting, the board voted 4-1 not to convene a special town meeting for voters to decide if they wanted to enact the spending cap ordinance.

Prior to the July 17 meeting, the board had stated that they would be willing to put the spending cap ordinance on the annual town meeting referendum ballot in June, as long as the ordinance was deemed legal.

Town attorney Jennifer Kreckel later stated that she believed that the the ordinance should be done through a charter change and not as an ordinance. As a result, the Board of Selectmen voted to remove the spending cap ordinance from the annual town meeting warrant.

Kreckel said that a municipality does have the authority to establish a spending cap, which is a limit on the amount of money that may be appropriated as part of the total annual budget.

However, Kreckel added that if selectmen decide to approve a warrant for a special town meeting on the matter as an ordinance, if passed by voters, it would only bind the legislative body that passed it and that it would not be binding on future legislative bodies.

She gave the board two options: ignore the petition because it is proposing an ordinance rather than a charter change and/or because the action sought by the petition doesn’t follow the procedure outlined in the charter, or issue a warrant for a special town meeting and let the voters approve or disapprove the ordinance.

However, if they chose the latter, Kreckel said she wouldn’t sign the warrant because she believes it violates Rumford charter procedure on how an ordinance is to be enacted.

Town Manager Carlo Puiia said that the board and the plaintiffs are “currently in a stalemate situation,” where each have differing interpretations of the charter.

“Our town attorney told us that there was no specific case that has decided on a similar situation, so she provided her legal opinion, which was to reject the spending cap ordinance,” Puiia said. “There is a section in the charter that says the content of a petition must be deemed legal and approved by the town. The board decided to support the town attorney’s decision.”

Puiia added that an executive session will be held following Monday’s selectmen meeting to discuss the issue.

Mark Belanger, one of the plaintiffs, said that “there is no wiggle room in the charter” and that the charter “does not say that the board can just refuse a petition after we’ve presented the proper amount of signatures.”

“They refused it once already, after we obtained the signatures of 25 voters and asked for them to declare an emergency,” Belanger said. “After that, we were able to obtain 467 signatures from residents, which is more than the required amount. According to the charter, the board must ‘immediately prepare and issue a warrant for a special meeting’ after the petition is presented and confirmed to be valid.”

Belanger said that the board “totally pissed on that” and ignored the rules of the charter and the wishes of the 467 people who signed the petition.

“Now, we’re asking a judge to rule that the board approve a special town meeting,” Belanger continued. “I think the charter is very clear.”

Blampied said Monday afternoon that the case is no longer about whether the spending cap ordinance is a good or bad idea.

“If the board thinks it’s a bad idea, they can talk about it at the special town meeting and give their opinion,” Blampied said. “They cannot just ignore the petition. The charter doesn’t say, ‘The board must hold a special meeting unless they don’t agree with it.’”

As for Kreckel’s legal opinion on the charter revision, Blampied called it a “technicality,” said that “there is no such thing in the charter” and that the town attorney “does not govern the Board of Selectmen.”

“The town attorney works under an advisory role,” Blampied said. “They don’t have to accept everything she says. The board is just hiding behind her opinion and squirming and struggling to get out from under something they know is wrong.”

Blampied added in his news release that the spending cap would help the town “resolve its current budget crisis.”

Voters defeated the initially proposed municipal budget of $7.6 million on June 11. Selectmen then reduced their recommendation from the original requested amount of $7.6 million to $6.5 million, and the Finance Committee reduced its budget recommendations to $7.2 million. Residents subsequently rejected eight of the 12 revised recommendations during a July 23 vote.

The injunction is sponsored by the SAVE Rumford committee and is being handled by attorney Thomas Carey of Rumford.

The other plaintiffs listed in the motion are Candice Casey, Diana Casey, Len Greaney, Mary Greaney, Diana Pratt, Richard Pratt, Patrick Ryan, Richard Suydam, James Windover and Phil Zinck.

mdaigle@sunjournal.com

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