Alna selectmen

Power outage, rancor mark meeting

Sat, 10/02/2021 - 8:45am

SUSAN JOHNS

File photo

Some at the Thursday, Sept. 30 Alna selectmen’s meeting called the board condescending or said it needs to oversee finances better. One citizen petition countered another. And the hybrid meeting lost its Zoom.

Selectmen were in the town office with more than two dozen other face-masked people and with other attendees via Zoom. The board planned a hearing on a proposed remote meeting policy, but some attendees questioned the hearing’s legitimacy, over whether or not it had to be announced in a newspaper ad. Selectmen said they would check.

During that discussion, former Selectman Ed Pentaleri read from the agenda that announced the hearing. He said he understood from Deputy Town Clerk Lynette Eastman the hearing was properly advertised.

Then resident Jeff Spinney questioned selectmen on Pentaleri’s involvement, including if they take advice from Pentaleri. “Is Ed Pentaleri your first selectman, or what? What is going on here?”

Third Selectman Charles Culbertson told Spinney, that was a ridiculous question.

Alna has had no first selectman since spring, when voters elected Culbertson and Second Selectman Linda Kristan, and First Selectman Melissa Spinney resigned over concern about the board’s new make-up.

Brittney Morgan Bardo told the board in the Sept. 30 meeting, she looks forward to whenever the town elects a new first selectman. She said the new board has been condescending toward people who deserve a lot of respect, and past selectmen have been respectful toward her even when she would get upset. She feels like she is in a completely different town now, she said.

Kristan told her, the board shows great respect, but must keep meetings on track to get town business done. Asked for any comment later on Bardo's remarks, Culbertson said: “I have to admit that I was pretty perplexed, but she's certainly entitled to her opinions.”

Former selectman David Abbott asked why the board had not already held an election for first selectman. It would take some of the burden off the two of them, he said. Former Selectman Doug Baston then said, after Melissa Spinney resigned, the board asked him if they should hold an election, and he recommended they give the town time to cool down first. “But that was six months ago.”

“And now we’re a few months off from March (elections),” Culbertson said.

As for the subject of the hearing, remote meetings, resident Fred Bowers said the practice disenfranchises residents who cannot go on Zoom. Selectmen said they have been doing their best in the pandemic, and feedback on the Zoom meetings has been good.

Also Sept. 30, resident Beth Whitney asked why the board did not use more excise taxes to bring down the tax rate, and she criticized the town’s handling of its financial software as “shoddy.” Selectmen said the software issues were being worked out. As for taxes, Kristan reiterated past statements the rate was set in consultation with assessors’ agent John O’Donnell and balanced the desire to minimize taxes with making sure the town can pay its bills.

The board also started to address Tom Aldrich and Katy Papagiannis’s petition that seeks a referendum to equalize selectmen’s pay and duties and elect members for three years instead of two. Resident and Lincoln County Administrator Carrie Kipfer works with three commissioners, including a chair she can call for permission to act on important issues that arise between meetings. She said Alna has the same setup between its selectboard and town clerk, but no longer would as proposed, because the petition states the chair’s only added authority would be to call the meetings and preside over them.

“Any time you would need to (address) some important issue, like closing the town office because of a COVID issue, you would need to have a selectboard meeting” instead of the chair being able to give the town clerk the OK, Kipfer said. “In my opinion, (this proposed change) is not good. You really need to think this through.”

Papagiannis said a planned “Q and A” session Oct. 20 with her and Aldrich might be the better time to address Kipfer’s point. Aldrich concurred.

Selectmen said the board may consider a town vote, starting with an open meeting, with mask-wearing, at 10 a.m. Nov. 6. Kristan agreed to former selectman Chris Cooper’s request the town put on its website a statement he submitted about the petition. He also sent Wiscasset Newspaper his statement. It calls the proposal a bad idea that would be destructive and solve nothing. Aldrich and Papagiannis have said it would make serving more appealing and help avoid having a board with all new members.

Selectmen got a compliment, from resident Mary Bowers: She thanked them for the planned work on Cross Road. Her car has been beaten to a pulp, she said. That night, the board was to take up the project. But votes on that and anything else were tabled due to a power outage, Culbertson said.

The power went out about 45 minutes into the meeting. Central Maine Power reported at cmpco.com, 175 Alna customers were out. And, with the town office among them, that ended the Zoom part of the meeting and, according to in-person participants, left them in the dark. Wiscasset Newspaper, on Zoom, briefly heard one of its fellow Zoom attendees, then heard and saw no more.

After the power went out, Spinney, who had been attending remotely, came into the town office, went downstairs and started the generator, Culbertson told Wiscasset Newspaper in email responses after the meeting. “Although the backup power provided light for those attending the meeting in person, we decided to adjourn the meeting since we lost connection with those attending the meeting remotely.”

Culbertson said the board tabled all items. Saturday, the town announced a special selectmen’s meeting for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6.

According to Culbertson and Baston, after the outage began, Baston submitted a petition on the same topic as the first. Baston told Wiscasset Newspaper he got all the needed signatures over six hours in one day, and he had more people wanting to sign it but he couldn’t get to them all before the meeting. The petition offers voters a second option toward possible change.

Baston’s petition asks the board, if it sends the first petition to referendum, to follow that warrant article with this one: “If the previous article fails, shall the town at the March 2022 Annual Meeting select by nomination from the floor a citizen committee of five members, including three former selectmen” to look at the effectiveness of Alna’s selectmen form of government, including members’ terms, duties and pay; what other towns Alna’s size do for those items and administrative staff; hold meetings for citizens’ input and to discuss options “and to strive for broad citizen consensus around any proposed recommendations” for action at the 2023 annual town meeting.

In a phone interview later, Baston said that approach would be a collaborative, open process, “the way towns are supposed to operate.”

Asked for comment on the pair of petitions, Culbertson said, “They both deserve equal consideration.”