Baileyville Friends lack election sway

BAILEYVILLE – Town Council Chairman Linda Rayner may have had the backing of the Friends of Magurrewock, but it was clear after Monday’s annual town meeting vote she did not have the support of voters.

Rayner, with only 86 votes, lost her seat, and it was newcomer Gary Moore’s night to celebrate; the local businessman handily won a seat on the council with 173 votes.

Derek Howard, who was one of the four councilors targeted by the Friends group with a threatened recall, held onto his seat with 133 votes.

The Friends of Magurrewock, an activities group that called anyone “corrupt” who did not agree with their assertion that a bridge should be built here instead of Calais, ran into a brick wall Monday night.

For months the group has pressed its case for a bridge in Baileyville. Instead, plans call for a $100 million bridge to be built in Calais to connect with neighboring St. Stephen, New Brunswick.

When the group, led by William Szirbik, began its protest against the Calais bridge four years ago it said it was concerned about the impact the bridge would have on the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge. Traffic to-and-from the bridge would travel along Route 1, through the refuge to Route 9. Lately, however, the group has focused less on the refuge and more on the economic advantages to Baileyville if the bridge were built here.

Unhappy that the federal and state governments rejected the proposed Baileyville sites in favor of Calais, the Friends pressed their case with every state and federal agency, at times calling the process and the people involved “compromised and corrupted” and “cowardly and corrupt.”

Earlier this year they increased their target to include four of the town’s five councilors, saying that if they didn’t play ball with the group, they would seek their recall.

The group was demanding a vote on whether taxpayers should sue the federal government and stop the bridge in Calais. A lawsuit would have cost the town as much as $50,000.

The question had been put before voters in the form of a nonbinding referendum last year and was narrowly defeated.

Four councilors, Derek Howard, Dottie Johnson, Tim Call and Richard Gayton did not support such a vote. The only councilor to escape the Friend’s recall threat was Rayner. Although the Friends in letters and at council meetings threatened a recall vote, they did not follow through on that threat.

A less controversial school committee race Monday returned incumbents Stephen Lincoln and Clifford McPhee to office with a vote of 163 and 124 votes respectively. James Bohanon came in third with 109 votes.