SANGERVILLE, Maine — It took two hours to get through the first 19 articles on the Sangerville annual town meeting warrant Saturday.
But after a session of four hours and 15 minutes, voters passed most of the 70 articles, re-elected Selectman Tom Carone and rejected a code of ethics ordinance.
Carone went through three rounds of balloting to win re-election because he didn’t get 51 percent of the vote in the first two races when three candidates were nominated.
In the first round, Carone got 42 votes, Mike Wark got 30 and Dale Gray got 28. Carone got 49 votes on the second ballot with Wark getting 27 and Gray 23.
All three were nominated for the third time, but Gray withdrew. That allowed Carone to defeat Wark, 53-48.
Newcomer Nicole Martin was elected to a three-year term on the School Administrative District 4 Board of Directors.
The $1.98 million budget is slightly higher than last year, partly because of an increase in the Piscataquis County tax and an anticipated 5 percent hike in the town’s share of the SAD 4 budget.
The only funding article that failed was a request for $7,400 for new carpeting for the community room, hallway and town administrative offices.
“I think it’s ludicrous to carpet all those rooms when our parking lot is nothing but mud,” Alice Moulton said.
The article that drew one of the lengthiest debates was a petition-generated article by Richard Dobson to enact a code of ethics ordinance for the community.
Dobson’s reasoning behind the petition was that a simple town policy could be overturned by the Board of Selectmen at any time while an ordinance only could be changed by voters at a town meeting.
Dobson told voters a letter in the town report from Sangerville’s legal counsel, Thad Zmistowski of Eaton-Peabody, which advised them to vote against the measure, was improper and misleading.
“The code of ethics ordinance we’re voting on is only seven pages,” Dobson said. “But the opinion cites references to pages eight to 10, which are not part of this ordinance.”
Dobson urged voters to “disregard the letter, which is based on totally erroneous information.”
But Selectman Melissa Randall said the three additional pages were a copy of the Maine statutes pertaining to the proposed ordinance, an article from the Maine Townsman magazine and a summary of the ordinance’s provisions written by Dobson.
Randall said MMA advised the board that passage of the ordinance “would be just a path to a lawsuit; and if you want to stay out of court, you don’t do things like that. This town is already divided. We don’t want to pass something that will keep us in constant turmoil with each other.”
On a secret ballot vote, the article failed 60-34.
Voters passed an article allowing permanent all-terrain vehicle access on portions of four town roads — Flanders Hill, Burroughs and Knowlton Mills roads and a portion of the East Sangerville Road.
“I don’t know of anyone who travels those roads more than me and my trucks, and I never had any problems with ATVs,” Gerald “Chummy” Jackson said.