March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Camden vote shows division on library> By 8 votes, residents OK ordinance outlining trustees’ authority over building, grounds

CAMDEN — Judging from Tuesday’s election results, the town remains deeply divided over the management of the Camden Public Library.

By a narrow eight-vote margin, residents approved a new library ordinance designed to delineate the powers of the library’s board of trustees over the library and its adjoining properties, Harbor Park and the Bok Amphitheater. The trustees derived their existing powers from a 1918 public meeting vote instructing them to oversee the care of the library and grounds.

The Town of Camden Public Library Ordinance passed by a vote of 475 in favor to 467 opposed. Approximately 25 percent of the town’s registered voters participated in the election.

Voters also approved changes to the zoning ordinance dealing with private ways, established a site plan review process for piers and wharves, approved a sidewalk ordinance and amended the harbor ordinance to regulate the size of vessels moored in the inner harbor.

In addition, approval was given to SAD 28 to spend up to $10.1 million to operate the local educational system for the 1998-99 school year. The budget passed 697 in favor to 275 opposed. A companion measure to appropriate $143,358 for the Community School District passed 732-271.

“I have major concerns about this ordinance,” Main Street resident Springer Lowell said Wednesday of the library ordinance. “These are the same people who have neglected our park for years.”

Lowell added that due to the thin electoral margin, “we will definitely be asking for a recount.”

Lowell and others in town have been critical of the trustees’ stewardship of the park and amphitheater. Friends of Camden’s Parks was formed in April in response to the trustees’ plans to spend $700,000 to renovate both public parks. The Friends mounted a campaign against trustees’ plan that resulted in its being rejected 1,021 to 551 in a special referendum last month.

Lowell said she opposed the ordinance because it gave the trustees complete control of public property without providing for public comment in the planning and decision-making process. She claimed it was the trustees’ unwillingness to accept suggestions from the public when they were planning to change the look of the parks that fueled the opposition to the plan and prompted last month’s referendum.

“It just seems so undemocratic,” she said. “Now we have a board that elects themselves to consecutive terms with no public input. To appoint yourself forever seems more like the divine right of kings than democracy.”

Lowell said she was disappointed the public failed to reject the library ordinance. She noted that if the recount fails to reverse the outcome of the vote, opponents still have the option of petitioning the town to revise the ordinance. Those revisions would include requirements for open elections, meetings and access to minutes of meetings, she said.

“It is a law not well-written,” Lowell said. “It’s better to start with a good law rather than a bad one and then try to fix it. Unfortunately, what we have is a bad law.”

Voters approved a SAD 28 budget calling for expenditures of $10,159,314 during the coming year. The budget package is $454,735, or 4.7 percent, higher than last year. The town also raised an additional $143,358 as its share of the projected $318,150 budget for the new $21 million high school for the towns of Camden, Rockport, Hope, Appleton and Lincolnville.


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