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SKOWHEGAN – More than 14,000 ballots will be recounted next Tuesday at the Skowhegan Community Center under the watchful eye of the Somerset County commissioners, the Maine State Police, the Somerset County district attorney and a group of interested observers.
When a Nov. 8 referendum bond vote on a proposed $30 million county jail was approved by only 28 votes, the commissioners were petitioned to hold the recount.
Commissioner Chairman Paul Hatch said Friday that counting will begin at 9 a.m., and the recount will be conducted by 10 teams of three people, all volunteers from outside of the county. Each team will consist of two counters and one monitor.
Hatch, who by law serves as the overseer, said he will stay behind a roped-off section and not participate directly in the recount.
“We do not want any perception of bias,” Hatch said Friday.
On Thursday, Maine state troopers picked up the ballots from each of the county’s 33 towns and will keep them secured until next Tuesday.
Because the proposal includes new headquarters in the jail for the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department, the state police were involved in the ballot collection to avoid a perception of conflict of interest.
Hatch and other county staff members spent Thursday morning at the secretary of state’s office learning the ins and outs of a recount. Because the referendum was a county vote, the state office can only offer advice.
“Strange as it may sound, state law says I act as the secretary of state in this matter,” Hatch said. He said the recount should be completed in one day, even if that stretches to 12 hours.
The recount is costing the county only for a few supplies and lunch and dinner for the counting teams, Hatch said.
Newport lawyer Dale Thistle has been hired to represent the county during the recount, which will be conducted town by town in alphabetical order.
The recount was forced when local lawyer John Youney submitted a petition to the commissioners on Wednesday containing 195 names.
Claiming that 28 votes “is not a mandate,” Youney not only called for the recount, but also asked the commissioners to take a closer look at trimming the jail proposal. He called the plans for the 173-bed facility “a Taj Mahal” and said it was too expensive to build and maintain.
State law requires the recount if 100 voters sign a petition demanding one. Hatch said this is the first time in memory that the county has been in this position.
“We are not sure it has ever happened before in the state,” Hatch said, referring to a county bond referendum recount.
Meanwhile, the commissioners said they may have misfigured the cost in taxes of the new jail in a book used during the referendum campaign and it actually may have a lower effect.
The booklet states that the jail would raise county taxes about $1.91 per $1,000 valuation, or $191 for a $100,000 home. The new calculation, done by assessor William Van Tuinen, revealed that taxes would rise about 62 cents per $1,000 valuation, or $62 for that same house.
That’s still too expensive, Youney said earlier this week.
“Everyone agrees that we need a new jail, but we don’t need a Taj Mahal,” Youney said Wednesday. “When we have an average of 77 inmates, why are we building a 173-bed facility?”
County officials maintained that they were building expansion into the project and can actually pay for the jail with revenues from boarding prisoners from other state facilities and federal agencies.
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