JAY — Selectpersons will consider a request Thursday to reconsider a petition to allow residents to vote on the proposed 145-mile Central Maine Power transmission line from Canada through Western Maine to Massachusetts.
A silent protest, which had been planned to support residents’ request to vote on the $1 billion hydroelectric transmission project, has been canceled, organizer Stryker Alexzander Adams said. The protest would have coincided with the Select Board’s meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Town Office.
Since then, Linda Reynolds’ request for the board to reconsider the petition for a special town meeting has been added to the board’s agenda for Thursday.
Adams said it’s important that people who support the special town meeting vote attend the meeting.
In a tie vote May 13, selectpersons rejected the petition signed by 217 registered voters requesting a town meeting within 60 days.
Selectpersons Gary McGrane and Chairperson Terry Bergeron voted in favor of the petition and Tom Goding and Vice Chairperson Tim DeMillo opposed it. Selectperson Judy Diaz abstained from voting at the request of residents.
The 2-2 vote meant the motion failed.
Reynolds wrote in an email to selectpersons that the legal petition was to hold a special town meeting to allow residents the right to vote. It was not about the board’s feelings about the project, she wrote.
Selectpersons have voted twice to support the New England Clean Energy Connect project, which would construct a transmission line from Beattie Township in Franklin County south into Somerset County and onto the regional power grid in Lewiston in Androscoggin County.
Jay stands to gain more than $460,000 in new tax revenue if the project is completed.
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