Residents of a small community in Somerset County voted to continue the process of disbanding their town, according to the municipality’s assessors.
Highland Plantation, a community of roughly 50 people, held a special meeting Saturday to pursue deorganizing.
The assessors, who are the only three elected positions in the plantation, did not include how many people voted or the final tally, but said the majority of voters approved it.
Highland Plantation is one of two communities in Maine to vote in recent days to move forward with dissolving. Maxfield, a town of 89 people in Penobscot County, voted to continue the process Monday.
In the warrant for the meeting, Highland residents cited a lack of new people to hold essential positions needed to run the plantation and a bare-bones budget that residents can’t afford as reasons for dissolving.
The vote was the second of 12 steps to deorganize — the process in which a municipality ceases to be an independent town and becomes part of Maine’s Unorganized Territory. The process can take between one and a half to two years to complete.
The Local Committee for the Deorganization of the Municipality was established, the assessors said, but no names of the five residents on the committee were shared.
The next steps in the deorganizing process include the committee creating a plan for disbanding, which it must submit to the state and county within 90 days.
The plan will then go to the Somerset County Commissioners, the Legislature and be voted on by residents two times.