Alna petitioners, voters talk; Baston announces move
Fri, 11/19/2021 - 8:45am
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Explaining the issues their petition targeted, Katy Papagiannis and Tom Aldrich told Alna public hearing-goers at the fire station Nov. 15, having the first selectman do more than the other two limits teamwork, and the others’ learning. And they said electing two out of three members every other year can lead to what happened last spring: An all new, two-member board if the first selectman resigns, is ill, “or worse,” Papagiannis said. “We need to be better prepared.”
First Selectman Melissa Spinney resigned after Linda Kristan made second selectman and Charles Culbertson, third selectman. Voters Dec. 14 elect a first selectman to finish Spinney’s term. It ends in March.
Papagiannis and Aldrich said, under their proposal, selectmen would pick a chair and divvy up members’ duties. It would not change the form of government, they said in response to speaker comments.
Former selectman David Abbott said, “It seems (the Aldrich-Papagiannis proposal) treats this as if it were an emergency. And I realize that what happened this year was a big disruption, (but) I don’t see that this solves anything.” He added, the change from two-year terms to three years could make some people hesitate to serve. Aldrich expects the opposite. Alna has a history of long-serving selectmen, he said.
Abbott said, “I think we’re rushing into something with this.” He said former selectman Doug Baston’s question, also on the ballot, seems more logical.
Baston said his counter petition sought harmony and consensus. “It doesn’t assume there’s a problem (or) lay out a simplistic solution. It empowers the citizens in open town meeting, which is our lawful legislative body, to select a committee that represents all of us to investigate all manner of potential reforms to our government.” The year the committee would take is “reasonable when tinkering with two centuries of success” in how Alna governs, Baston said.
Resident Mary Fossel called the Aldrich-Papagiannis proposal common sense. She said the first selectman’s “hugely” higher pay is not a bad thing to correct.
Resident Fred Bowers asked what made the proposed changes an emergency to take up before town meeting next spring. Aldrich said passage was needed 90 days before town meeting for the changes to take effect with the March elections. He noted an attempt to vote on the changes in November lost. “It became a matter of bucks and does, because nobody thought it was important enough to miss one day of hunting season.”
If the changes take effect later, the town is still vulnerable to sudden selectboard vacancies “where concentration of knowledge on how to run the town can disappear, like we saw this past year,” Papagiannis said. “And we don’t want to be in that situation again.”
Bowers said he appreciates their concern, but the proposal needs committee work.
Supporting the Aldrich-Papagiannis proposal, resident Maria Jenness said the town will be stronger for it. Resident and the lone first selectman’s candidate on the Dec. 14 ballot, Ed Pentaleri, said the proposal can aid continuity and stability.
It is wrong-headed, former selectman Chris Cooper said. When he was in Westport Island Nov. 13 moderating a special town meeting, three people asked him “some variation on ... What the hell is going on in your town,” he said. “We have, I told them, lost our sense of who we are, where we've come from, and what our purpose should be.”
Baston said his dentist asked him. Then Baston, a former 20-year planning board chair, told hearing-goers something he said none of them knew: After 36 years, he and wife Barbara are leaving Alna.
That is not due to the town’s unrest; they have long planned the move to be nearer their son and have a newer home to age in. But all that has gone on, from an email joking about the idea of ransacking the town office, to a venomous Facebook post he said wished him dead, will make leaving easier, Baston said. The Alna he moved to is in his memory and in town reports, he said. “So I’ll miss some of you. Some of you, I won’t. But I’ll certainly miss the Alna that I moved to. It doesn’t exist anymore.”
Also Dec. 14, voters will consider tapping surplus; selectmen seek $25,000 for the unforeseen contingencies account, including covering this year’s about $10,000 in overruns. Resident Ralph Hilton said he could support that, but not $15,000 more that selectmen could “wildly” spend. Treasurer Amy Stockford told the hearing, Alna has long been one of Lincoln County’s leanest-run towns, and at times near year’s end has nearly run out of money. Having contingency and a town surplus can help avoid that risk, she said. She added, it is a balancing act between holding taxes down and building that cushion. The last and current boards have sought to do that, Stockford said.
View the meeting where Wiscasset Newspaper did, on Lincoln County Television at lctv.org
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