Lamoine elects two selectmen, restricts beaches

LAMOINE – Residents decided to ban most motorized vehicles from the town beaches during Wednesday night’s annual town meeting and gave their stamp of approval to two incumbent selectmen in a contested race during Tuesday’s municipal election.

A proposal to sell a parcel of land behind the transfer station for $75,000 to contractors Doug Gott & Sons Inc. of Southwest Harbor failed during the meeting.

“People were leery of the deal, so they voted not to do it,” Stu Marckoon, town administrative assistant, said Thursday.

S. Josephine Cooper, chairman of the board of selectmen, easily won a three-year seat with 310 votes and Selectman Brett Jones won the other three-year seat with 254 votes. Candidates Richard Davis received 151 votes and Robert Sharkey received 56 votes.

A total of 420 voters, or 31 percent of those registered, cast ballots during the election. Marckoon said that residents voted to raise about $2.8 million in taxes to pay for the fiscal year 2007 budget, but that taxes should fall a bit.

“There’s increased spending but not increased property taxes,” he said. “There’s a little more state aid for education.”

Voters also decided to approve an override for LD1, the state-imposed funding limit, according to Marckoon.

“Roughly $39,000 will be raised in property taxes for the municipal side of the budget,” he said. “LD1 had limited us to zero.” The overrides required a written ballot, he said, which “really disrupted the flow of town meeting.”

The meeting lasted just under three hours, Marckoon said.

In other business, residents voted to:

. Repave a portion of the Seal Point Road.

. Approve salaries of $1,000 for selectmen and $1,600 for the chairman.

. Approve $5,700 for 13 social service agencies, including $600 for the Downeast AIDS Network.

During the municipal school board elections, Tammy Dickey was elected to a one-year term with 352 votes. Robert Pulver was elected to a two-year seat with 312 votes. Write-in candidate Patricia Murphy received 48 votes. Nancy Sargent won a three-year term with 282 votes and Julie Tilden won another three-year term with 257 votes.