STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine — Although some residents were concerned and angered last week to receive a letter in the mail from town officials telling them how to vote in the elections on Tuesday, the Maine Municipal Association said the mailer was legal.
“Free speech is free speech, really,” Eric Conrad, spokesman for the association, said Monday.
The mailer indicated that the Stockton Springs Board of Selectmen was not in favor of terminating the community’s school withdrawal committee.
“Please vote NO on article 2,” it stated, without going into any detail as to why residents were urged to vote that way.
Resident Veronica Magnan said that when she got the mailer on Friday, it didn’t seem right — and there was no time left to write a letter to the editor rebutting it before Election Day.
“I was very concerned that the town office would issue what amounts to a command to vote ‘no’ on an issue, when they gave no background to it,” she said. “You can’t tell people to vote a certain way. That’s unethical at best. I was very concerned about that.”
The school district, which was created after the controversial 2008 school consolidation law was passed, once included all nine towns of the former SADs 34 and 56 — Belfast, Belmont, Frankfort, Morrill, Northport, Searsmont, Searsport, Stockton Springs and Swanville. But after seven of the towns voted to withdraw in the last few years, only Searsport and Stockton Springs — which also had formed withdrawal committees of their own —will be left in RSU 20 beginning on July 1.
Magnan said she feels the message of the mailer would be stressful for the teachers, faculty and support staff of RSU 20.
“It’s not a time to be destroying the RSU,” Magnan said. “It’s a time to strengthen it and build it.”
Selectman Lesley Cosmano said the select board did not intend to show dissatisfaction with RSU 20 by urging Stockton Springs residents to vote to keep its own withdrawal committee in place.
“The select board just felt that at this time it was best to keep all options open,” she said. “Nobody knows what the future will hold. [The withdrawal committee] is a safety valve. You have it there for protection. It’s like a fire extinguisher. It’s just a comfort to know it’s there in case you do need it.”
Cosmano said the withdrawal committee, which has not met in months, will cost taxpayers nothing to keep it in place. She also said that the mailer was sent to residents so late because the selectmen were hoping to hear something concrete from the RSU 20 board of directors regarding the school budget.
“That’s not the fault of the school board members, who have been working diligently,” she said. “But they haven’t been able to come up with accurate figures. This is why the select board just feels uncomfortable dissolving the committee at this time.”
Cosmano also said the board was striving to include information about three upcoming dates in the mailer, which left them no room to explain themselves.
“We had to be brief,” she said.
Conrad said that government officials do have a right to speak in such matters.
“If they stay silent, voters are less informed,” he said.