Cites his injured son as the reason
Mark Touchette cites his injured son as reason

ROXBURY – Selectman Mark Touchette stunned town officials and a crowd of about 25 at Tuesday night’s selectmen meeting when he suddenly announced his resignation, effective Tuesday, Sept. 23.

A few weeks ago, his 17-year-old son Ian Touchette suffered a serious hand injury in a car accident in Carthage and was flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Since then, Selectman Touchette and his wife, Janet, have made many trips to Boston to be with their son, who continues to undergo multiple surgeries, he said.

“It’s got nothing to do with politics or anything of that nature; it’s just that I always put family first,” Touchette said after the 30-minute meeting ended.

“I made the decision last night after we got back from Boston. My boy had had a bad day and I said, ‘That’s it.’ Anybody that knows me knows that I’ve always said, ‘Family first, work second, and town third,'” he added.

Touchette’s departure in two weeks will leave Deborah DeRoche as the lone selectman, unable to complete town business. Work on a proposed zoning ordinance change that would allow wind power farms to be built on Roxbury hills and other municipal dealings have ground to a standstill.

“Everything’s going to be put on hold until we get a new board in. It’s not a very good time for this and it’s not what I want to do, but it’s what I have to do,” Touchette said.

Normally, the town has three selectmen, but since April, DeRoche and Touchette alone have completed town business.

Touchette, a three-year selectman, has served the town since 1992 in various municipal offices. DeRoche was elected in March 2007.

The third seat opened on April 11 when Selectman Christine “Tina” Howard resigned. Howard, former town clerk, tax collector and treasurer, was illegally elected a month earlier at town meeting.

According to Maine law, a tax collector can’t be elected as selectman or to any other elected position until the collector has completed his or her collection duties. That, however, couldn’t have been done prior to the March 3 town meeting.

DeRoche said she would take care of road issues, work on the special town meeting process for selectmen elections, contact the Maine Municipal Association to find out what she can and can’t do, and hire a lawyer to draft a revised zoning ordinance regarding wind power facilities.

“The most important thing now is to get two new selectmen in. We’ve tried it twice and nothing came of it,” she said. “I will try to do the best I can with the stuff I can do, but I’ll be starting off with Roxbury desperately seeking other selectmen.”

Regarding Touchette’s resignation, DeRoche said, “It was a shock, because I had talked to him a week ago and everything was fine. There was total silence tonight after Mark announced he was resigning.”

She and Town Clerk Nina Rollins said the situation would not affect the town office, which will remain open for business on its regular schedule.

In other matters, selectmen continued to hear complaints about overweight logging trucks on roads more frequently than in past years.

On Tuesday night, they decided to contact the Maine State Police Commercial Vehicles Enforcement Division and request a detail of troopers to station scales in Roxbury to weigh the trucks, and, hopefully, alleviate the problem, DeRoche said.