Millinocket council rethinks tax petition

MILLINOCKET – While the original petition failed for not having enough valid signatures, part of the City Council on Thursday night advocated for revisiting the citizen-led initiative supporting a reduction of the property-tax rate.

Two residents submitted a petition to the town clerk last Tuesday with 453 valid signatures from people who supported the council dropping the mill rate from $19.40 per $1,000 of valuation to $17. The petition failed because it needed 495 signatures, or 20 percent of voters in the 2002 gubernatorial election, to be considered for a nonbinding referendum question.

Petition organizer John DiCentes later submitted 63 additional names, but they weren’t accepted after the town’s lawyer said they would constitute a different petition.

Councilor Matt Polstein Thursday night said he wasn’t in favor of the mill rate drop, nor did he sign the petition, but the petitioners had shown the ability to get enough signatures and there could be some value in allowing voters to voice their opinion on the issue.

Additionally, Polstein asked if the council could work with the petitioners to come up with language that would be legally acceptable.

The petition’s wording is problematic because it tries to put the responsibility of setting a mill rate on the council when it’s actually the job of the town’s assessor, Town Manager Gene Conlogue said recently.

Councilors Don McLaughlin and Gordon McCauslin also supported working with the petitioners. Councilors will discuss how they might proceed at the Nov. 13 meeting.

In an interview after the meeting, Polstein said that when the petitioners collected the votes at the polls in 2002, they were under the assumption they needed 425 votes, or 20 percent of people voting in the 1998 gubernatorial election. But the necessary signatures rose to 495 after 2002, because more people voted in that election, Polstein said.

“I think that had they known what the right number was, they could have gotten that number of signatures,” Polstein said. “My sense is that the people have made a good faith effort to guide and direct the council.”

The point of the petition was to make the council aware of the need for future planning, DiCentes said after the meeting. With so many people still out of work from the paper mill closings earlier this year, the town needs to do what it can to relieve the tax burden, DiCentes said.

“Looking down the road, you’ve got to get these taxes down,” DiCentes said. “You’ve got to give everybody the tax break.”

In another item, the council unanimously voted to give $5,000 from the town’s undesignated fund balance to I Care Ministries for the purpose of purchasing food for clients of the organization.