RUMFORD — A grass-roots effort to convince voters to defeat the proposed $8 million municipal budget may have worked too well.

The Greater Rumford Community Center‘s initiated articles requests for funding were defeated at the polls Tuesday, and there is no recourse due to a previous charter change.

The GRCC’s operating budget of $138,100 was defeated 829-657, and its summer programs funding request of $22,720 was rejected by a tally of 845-607.

That means there will be no recreational programs, greatly reduced hours and job losses, said Bob Anderson, GRCC programs director.

Political activist group Save Rumford, which urged voters to reject the municipal budget, had its treasurer, Len Greaney, meet with the GRCC board of directors at the center late Wednesday afternoon.

Anderson said Greaney was trying to help directors figure out how to remain open. The center was open Monday through Saturday for several hours each day.

“Definitely, our hours are getting cut back Monday, (and) we cannot run any summer programs, which includes swimming, summer soccer, T-ball, day camp, swimming lessons,” Anderson said.

He said they will try to remain open until at least August to give current memberships their time.

“There’s been such an outcry even from the Vote No people that didn’t expect this to happen,” Anderson said.

“They didn’t expect that places like the Community Center would get shut down, and so with (the Mexico Recreation Center) also getting shut down, right now there’s no recreation for kids in the area at all,” he said. “And that’s just going to be devastating to the whole area. And with no places for the kids to go, instead of laying off police (due to rejected budgets), they should be hiring some.”

Anderson said some Rumford selectmen who called the center were in shock.

“They didn’t think this was going to happen, so we heard a lot of people reach out to us today that want to help,” he said.

Gary Dolloff, chairman of the GRCC board of directors, said he doesn’t believe voters realized what they were doing when they defeated the center’s funding requests.

“I think the people who were told to just vote no, they just voted no on everything and really didn’t know what they were voting on,” Dolloff said. “And we had people come in today and actually say that. They were under the assumption that we could go back and renegotiate, but where they’re initiated articles, they can’t.”

“That was the big misconception,” Anderson said. “Everybody thought they could go back and revote. The repercussion is that we get zero dollars and we just can’t keep the place open.”

Dolloff said if the GRCC closes, that shuts down three businesses with rents on the downtown island, the Senior Citizens Center and use of the building by several nonprofit groups, including the Hope Association and Chisholm School.

“If anybody has any ideas on how to keep us going, reach us at the Community Center,” Dolloff said. That number is 369-9906.

Save Rumford co-organizer Mark Belanger, a former Rumford selectman, said the group didn’t intend for voters to defeat the GRCC budget requests.

“You know, people might get mad at (Save Rumford members), but the people have a choice,” he said. “I mean, all I did was hold a sign. I didn’t hold a gun to anybody’s head. We just tried to get the facts out.”

Even though the GRCC is a quasi-municipal operation with its own board, it is funded by the town, Belanger said. That’s why the GRCC should be a budget item and not an initiated article request, he said.

“We were supposed to do that when I was on the board and for some reason, we never did it,” Belanger said. “We fund them quite a bit and I’ve always felt that we should have a recreation budget, and that way there, it could come back.”

Belanger said Tuesday’s action at the polls set a precedent for a Rumford municipal budget getting defeated badly.

“I just think it sends a clear message,” he said. “I think people are fed up.”

Belanger said he was pleased that voters rejected the municipal budget but worried that selectmen would minimally pare it for a new recommendation.

That’s why Save Rumford is working to present a petition to selectmen to convene a special town meeting on the group’s proposed $6.2 million budget cap. Should selectmen vote against that, the group will seek 500 or so required signatures to circumvent it.

“If people would vote in the $6.2 million cap, which I think is pretty reasonable, that would give (selectmen) some direction,” Belanger said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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