Lamoine voters to consider expanding Board of Selectmen

LAMOINE – Voters will get a chance later this year to decide whether to expand the Board of Selectmen to five members from three.

A citizen petition with some 100 signatures of registered voters has been presented to the town office. Stu Marckoon, administrative assistant to the selectmen, said Wednesday the petition was filed too late to make the March town meeting warrant.

Marckoon has recommended putting the local referendum question on the June primary ballot.

“It doesn’t matter to me how big [the board] is,” he said. “If they want five, great. If they want three, great. Obviously the voters have the last say.”

Selectman Josephine “Jo” Cooper, however, does not favor expanding the board. Cooper, the current board chairman, said she explored the idea when she first took office in the late 1990s and concluded that three members works just fine.

Cooper said a five-member board would only invite “polarization” and make it more difficult to make decisions.

She said three selectmen are sufficient and efficient to carry out the business of the town.

“If they want to change the membership, they have an opportunity every year,” she said, noting that residents elect or re-elect one selectman every year.

Cooper also thinks a bigger board “is just one step toward” changing the town’s form of government to a town manager-town council format.

Raymond Wood, one of the petition signers, said Tuesday a larger board would increase the chances of getting something passed. It also would engender more debate because there would be more ideas and opinions, he said.

“I just think the ideas would be better,” he said. “Maybe not always, but often.”

Resident Robert Sharkey circulated the petition, in addition to a second petition calling for a secret ballot vote on whether to buy a new firetruck.

Selectmen have put the firetruck purchase on the annual town meeting warrant so that it can be fully debated and aired during the meeting.

Sharkey could not be reached for comment Wednesday.