MECHANIC FALLS — Voters on Tuesday voiced their displeasure with a municipal budget set at $2.45 million, an increase of more than $200,000 over the current year’s spending plan.
The proposed budget had threatened to increase property taxes by about $146 on a home assessed at $100,000.
Voters rejected nine of the 29 funding articles on the budget warrant.
Elements on the budget rejected by voters included budgets for the Police Department, town clerk, code enforcement, animal control, health officer, legal services, debt services and pensions and insurances.
Town Manager John Hawley said the council would have to call a public hearing to gather feedback from those who didn’t support these articles.
“The way it looks right now, people are OK with cutting municipal services,” Hawley said. “That’s what we’re going to have to do.”
Hawley was puzzled by the vote pattern, in particular he didn’t know what to make of the fact that voters didn’t want to fund debt services but approved, by a 176-163 margin, a bond to buy a firetruck.
“We received a clear-as-mud message,” he said. “We understand that people are concerned about their taxes but how they voted on that one has me a little confused.”
The council will reconfigure the articles voters rejected, with input from the public, and send them back for another vote in accordance with provisions in the town’s new method of setting its annual budget now that the traditional town meeting has been replaced by a referendum ballot.
In the four-way race to fill two seats on the Town Council, incumbent Cathy Fifield led all candidates with 212 votes, returning for a second term. She will be joined on the council by Wayne Hackett, who received 153 votes. Hackett will replace Dan Blanchard, who left the board having served his allotted three terms. Ollie Emery received 132 votes and Roger Guptill received 69.
Jack Wiseman, running unopposed, will continue to serve as one of the town’s representatives to the RSU 16 school board, having received 275 votes.
Roger Guptill was re-elected to another term as a Sanitary District trustee with 281 votes.
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