A check with Maine Municipal Association over a committee’s request has led to plans for more Nov. 5 ballot questions for Wiscasset voters. Selectmen Aug. 20 supported ordinance changes Town Manager Dennis Simmons said would meet the Wiscasset Municipal Airport Advisory Committee’s goal of voting privileges for longtime member Steve Williams of Georgetown. 

Based on the night’s discussion, the impetus for the ballot questions was MMA’s guidance. Wiscasset ordinance bars non-residents from serving on the appeals board and budget committee, and allows the airport and waterfront committees each one non-resident, non-voting member; and planning board, one non-resident, who can vote. 

Selectmen are proposing pulling from the ordinances all those differentiations, so that non-residents could serve and vote on all those panels. Simmons explained in his written manager’s report, MMA told him, by statute, since Wiscasset has no charter to the contrary, the only requirements to serve on a committee – other than selectboard or school committee – are Maine residency, and being a U.S. citizen at least 18 years old. So, he said, according to MMA, the local residency requirements are unenforceable, and keeping any member besides an alternate from voting could pose a legal issue. 

The “simplest way to deal with the issue” is to pull those parts of the ordinances and, “if the selectboard feels a non-resident does not bring anything to the town, do not appoint them,” Simmons wrote. He said there could be valid reasons to appoint a non-resident. “Steve Williams is a good example. He brings many years of aviation experience to the airport committee.”

Besides asking voters for the ordinance changes, selectmen discussed possibly revising the committee handbook, which Simmons said does not take a town vote. “If you feel that you need to regulate something, regulate it through the policy” via that handbook, which guides committee appointments, Simmons said. Members discussed wanting non-resident committee members to be taxpayers, and wanting to limit a committee’s number of non-residents. That limit is proposed to be lifted from the ordinances.

“So go forward with (the proposed ordinance changes) and then just take care of it in the handbook so that you have the policy on what you would really want to do,” Selectman Pamela Dunning said.

Williams is a Wiscasset taxpayer, and selectmen joined Simmons in speaking to Williams’ value on the airport committee. Reached by phone Aug. 22, Williams said he had heard about the potential ordinance changes from Selectman William “Bill” Maloney, the board’s liaison to the committee.

The ordinance changes would benefit the town, Williams said. “All the committees need to (have) qualified individuals. And the airport committee is an advisory-only committee – anything we vote on gets sent either to the town manager or to the selectboard for review.” He added, the committee’s members are mostly in their older years, it has been “extremely hard” to find new, qualified members, and in about five to seven years, there could be a complete turnover on the committee. The hanger owners are a pool of interested, taxpaying potential members who “are a great resource, and that should be taken advantage of,” he said.

Other questions selectmen have planned to take to voters Nov. 5 involve the sewer plant’s would-be move to the public works facility and public works’ move to the transfer station property; a Maine Public Employees Retirement System change for the police department; and possibly a question on Johnson Controls’ proposed energy project.