December 23, 2024
TOWN MEETINGS

Orient voters pass $277,883 budget despite delay of annual meeting

ORIENT – Voters in Orient approved a $277,883 municipal budget at their annual town meeting last week with all articles on the warrant passing as written, Town Clerk Alicia Silkey said Tuesday.

The clerk noted that $76,680 of the total budget went to education.

Orient’s regularly scheduled town meeting was postponed in August after procedural questions arose.

According to Silkey, some of those who attended the first meeting questioned whether the meeting warrant had been posted correctly. Selectmen eventually voted to postpone the meeting until they could seek legal advice from the Maine Municipal Association.

Silkey explained that she posted the official meeting warrant and numerous copies around town on Aug. 12 as required by law. The next morning, she said, the official warrant had been stolen from where it was posted. There was no plain copy of the attested copy. Since she had already posted the official warrant legally, Silkey said she took a copy of the warrant that was in the town report and posted that.

Since that document from the town report contained only the signature of one selectman, some people at the first meeting said she had not posted the warrant correctly.

Town officials later consulted MMA and were told that they could have gone ahead with the first meeting. They rescheduled another meeting for Sept. 6.

One of the questions on the warrant dealt with changing the date of the annual town meeting, but voters rejected it.

“Everything went well,” Silkey said, “and we will have our town meeting in August.”


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