NEWBURGH, Maine — Two months after they postponed action on town meeting warrant items related to spending, residents will be asked on Saturday to approve a municipal budget for the current fiscal year.
The annual town meeting that was continued on June 22 will resume at 9 a.m. at Newburgh Elementary School.
One reason residents cited when they postponed voting on spending in June was the lack of current audit information, Town Manager Cindy Grant and Erik Stumpfel, the town’s legal counsel and town meeting moderator, said at that time.
The audit since has been completed and is posted on the town’s website.
The other reason was that they wanted to wait for a selectman to be elected to replace Leonard “Buddy” Belcher, who along with his wife, former Deputy Town Clerk Gina Belcher, abruptly resigned their positions on June 8 amid a negative campaign waged against them by Helen Mogan, a former selectwoman.
Mogan distributed copies of documents about Gina Belcher’s conviction for theft of public money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture more than a decade ago.
Documents filed in U.S. District Court in Bangor show that Belcher pleaded guilty to embezzling $22,150 from June 2001 through July 2002 while employed as acting county executive director of the USDA Farm Service Agency office in Bangor. She paid restitution and a satisfaction of judgement was filed in court in September 2008.
Mogan said in June that while she has no reason to believe Belcher did anything wrong while town clerk, she felt that residents had a right to know about Belcher’s background, given the town’s recent experience with Cindy Dunton, the former deputy clerk and treasurer who embezzled nearly $200,000 from the town.
Dunton pleaded guilty to Class B theft in April 2011 and months later was sentenced to five years in prison with all but 20 months suspended. She is gradually paying restitution.
The election for the remaining year of Leonard Belcher’s unexpired seat on the Board of Selectmen took place on Aug. 9.
The winner of the election was Stanley “Skip” Smith, a former selectman of 11 years as well as a former firefighter and planning board chairman.