TEMPLE — Voters at Temple’s Town Meeting Saturday, April 30, voted to approve all articles on the 2022 warrant.
The approved articles include a $606,318 budget for the remainder of 2022. This budget is a $19,899 increase, or 3.4%, from what was approved in 2021.
Tax Collector and Treasurer Sue Cantrell said that approximately 45 voters attended town meeting.
Voters also elected Dean Collins as the town’s new selectman. Collins, who was not nominated leading up to the meeting won the three-year seat over incumbent Tracy Dunham in a 19-16 vote.
Cantrell said that Collins’ election was “a shock to a lot of people.”
No one anticipated he was running, Cantrell said.
“I think [Dunham] was caught off guard,” she said.
Cantrell attributed that to Temple’s local election process which does not call for nomination papers.
Collins said in a later interview that he decided to run in March after being approached.
“The timing was right,” Collins said. “I had retired. I had the time to commit.”
Collins did not do much campaigning leading up to Town Meeting, he said.
Otherwise, Cantrell said “everything [on the warrant] got approved without any controversy at all” at a fast pace.
In addition to the budget, voters approved Article 52 to appropriate the town’s $54,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds “for building a bathroom downstairs in the Town Office, installing an on-demand electrical generator, and kitchen and heating system updates.”
Collins said the board is discussing the idea to have Dunham continue with the town as an administrator of the American Rescue Plan Act funds.
Voters also approved a pay-raise of $500 for each selectman, bringing their stipends from $3,200 to $3,700 a year.
Voters did not have a chance to elect a new director for Regional School Unit 9’s Board of Directors due to a mistake with the warrant.
An RSU 9 director was supposed to be elected following incumbent Betsey Hyde’s leave but Cantrell said the article was mistakenly left off the warrant.
As a result, selectmen at a future meeting will appoint someone to serve until the 2023 election.
“A lot of things got by us this year without being prepared the way we should have been,” Cantrell said. “Everything happened very quickly.”
They include the surprise nomination, omitted RSU 9 director election and approval of a three-percent discount on real estate taxes paid within thirty days of the tax billing date, which was not recommended by the board but desired by townspeople.
“The conversation after town meeting was ‘that’s where, why we need nomination papers,'” Cantrell explained.
Moving forward, Cantrell said the town will work to avoid similar mistakes, situations that resulted from this year’s town meeting.
“You’re going to find probably that next year things will … be different,” she added.
Cantrell anticipates the town will have nomination papers “down the road, in the long run.”
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