MINOT – School Committees in Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland voted Thursday night to move ahead with electing a school board Jan. 27 to govern a new consolidated school system.

Voters in each town will elect five people to represent them. Nomination papers are available at town offices and must be returned by 4 p.m. Dec. 18 to the School Union 29 central office on Maine Street in Poland. Absentee ballots will be available at town offices beginning Dec. 29.

The new board will be sworn in within 10 days of the election and immediately assume transitional duties to establish a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2009.

It is expected that most of the current school board members in the three towns will seek to serve the new district. In an informal poll by Mechanic Falls School Committee member Jacques Wiseman, who was running Thursday’s meeting, it appeared that two members of the Poland School Committee and one each from Mechanic Falls and Minot will not seek seats on the new board.

In other action, the three boards named Union 29 Superintendent Dennis Duquette to serve as interim secretary of the consolidated school system to oversee the election of the board, and they established the Union 29 central office as the headquarters for the new school system.