LINCOLN, Maine — A successful petition forcing a referendum has temporarily halted town plans to relocate the office from Main Street to Fleming Street, officials said Tuesday.
Town Clerk Shelley Crosby finished on Tuesday certifying 776 signatures on a petition organized by the local Masonic fraternity that is also the town office landlord. Under the town charter, the Masons needed 321 signatures out of the town’s 3,213 registered voters, she said.
One of the organizers of the petition, Masonic Lodge President Mark Weatherbee, said he was pleased with the results.
“I am very pleased and amazed at how many have signed the petition to counteract the council vote. I wish you and others could know how emphatically they have opposed the vote,” Weatherbee said Tuesday. “We have had three people that have refused to sign and one of them that did sign said they were in favor of a new Town Hall but signed the petition because they did not like the way this was handled.”
According to the town’s attorney, Andrew Hamilton, the petition drive effectively suspends the Town Council’s 5-1 vote on Aug. 25 to go with developer Sterling Osgood’s proposal to build a new town office on Fleming Street by next summer, council Chairman Steve Clay said.
Councilors were due to sign on Sept. 8 a memorandum of understanding confirming their desire to work toward that goal, but agreed to delay that vote until Thursday. Thursday’s special meeting at 7 p.m. at the town office will occur but only to discuss in executive session candidates for the open town manager’s job, Clay said.
Hamilton did not immediately return a telephone call on Tuesday.
The referendum vote is a sign of the dissent between the council and the Masonic lodge that has occurred intermittently since the council gave the Masons a three-year notice of their intent to seek a new location for the town office in 2012.
The council sought on three occasions requests for proposals for a new office from the public since summer 2013 and held three public meetings and several executive sessions where the idea was discussed before the Aug. 25 vote, said Ruth Birtz, the town’s economic development coordinator.
The efforts eventually drew three proposals, although councilors rejected the Masons’ proposal because it included no cost estimates.
The Masons have said the council is ignoring the will of residents who in 2012 voted 1,602 to 361 against the town purchasing land for a new town office. They say that, at $2,566 per month, the town’s lease deal with the Masons was the most affordable option.
Councilors said that the vote was nonbinding and that the council doesn’t seek to buy a building. The 2012 referendum also favored renovating Ballard Hill Community Center as a town office, 1,069 to 917, and combining the town office with the offices of RSU 67, 1,342 to 659 votes. The referendum did not indicate support for keeping the town at the three-story Masonic building at 63 Main St.
Councilors also said that the present lease arrangement includes no cost estimates for how much the lease cost would increase if the Masons made improvements to the building town workers sought.
Calling the Masons unresponsive to town concerns, town leaders have tried to vacate the Masonic building off and on since 2004. They sought requests for proposals previously, in 2007. An effort to include it in an apartment building at West Broadway and Main Street collapsed in 2008. Previous efforts failed because of fears about the costs involved.
Councilors have said that the move to Fleming Street would not have an impact on local tax rates. Town officials will use money set aside in the tax increment financing deal with the Rollins wind project. That fund has about $400,000, Clay has said.
Under the town charter, the council must call a public hearing in 30 days on the referendum petition and set an election date within 14 days of that, Crosby said.