FARMINGTON – Many residents left after a vigorous, back-and-forth debate on whether to fund the Abused Women’s Advocacy Program ended without any money getting approved at a little over halfway through the 41-article warrant at annual town meeting tonight.
Those who stayed to the 40th article, however, overwhelmingly killed an attempt to amend the town’s Shoreland Zoning Ordinance.
Before any of this action, voters at the polls gave Ryan Morgan a seat on the selectmen board with 99 votes to incumbent John Frary’s 67 votes.
Frary congratulated Morgan and added, “As Adlai Stevenson once said, ‘The people have spoken – the bastards.'” Iris Silverstein, a local pediatrician, ran unopposed for the MSAD 9 school board seat Joyce Morton had held.
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Voters, 102 to 66, also decided to move town meeting from Monday nights to Saturdays. It will be up to selectmen to decide which Saturday the next annual town meeting will be held.
The reason to withhold all funding for the Abused Women’s Advocacy Program that provides shelter and counseling to victims of abuse, after they requested $5,000, said Selectman Jon Bubier, was that 77 percent of the total budget went toward salaried employees, and “very little actually goes to service clients,” he said. He added that the state’s Department of Health and Human Services annually funds the program totaling $763,000.
“The bottom line is that we thought labor and overhead were significantly higher that it needed to be,” Bubier said. AWAP’s records show that 1,790 people in Franklin County were served with 106 of that total Farmington residents.
Residents spoke out in favor of the agency and attempted to amend the total appropriation to $3,000.
“It’s there for people to call. It’s worth the $5,000,” said resident Penny Hood. She added that she hasn’t called the fire department but still votes to fund it.
Bubier countered its an independent agency and that “aren’t we forcing this down our taxpayers’ throats? If individuals want to fund the program, then they should.”
Police Chief Richard Caton, III, spoke in favor of the agency, adding his department routinely refers victims to the agency.
“There are women who definitely need the services,” Caton said.
Resident Tom Eastler said in the past, he has always spoken out in favor of AWAP funding, but this time he said there are too many questions not being answered.
“Somebody needs to be here to explain what will go towards services,” he said. In the end, residents voted 34 to approve the amended appropriation of $3,000 and 43 against. On the next vote, the majority passed the that no funding be given.
Ironically, another agency, the American Red Cross, was approved for $1,000 more than selectmen recommended. Selectmen recommended appropriating the American Red Cross $2,500, as opposed to the requested $3,500, and the budget committee asked that the organization receive the entire requested amount, which voters approved.
All told, a budget of $4,350,109 in total appropriations was approved or .18 percent less than the current budget.
It was Eastler, who serves on the planning board but said he wasn’t speaking for the board, who advised against voting for the amendments to the Shoreland Zoning Ordinance. The updated version was created to stay in line with state law.
“The problem here is that we need time to read this,” he said. If passed, a 30,000 square foot parcel of land within 250 feet of a great pond only allows for one camping site and that’s limited to 10 people.
“They have no right to tell me I can’t have more than 10 people. DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) is way out of line,” Eastler said. “There’s a lot of stuff we need to look at. This is very important.” He recommended not passing the article and holding meetings to discuss the proposal further.
Although state law trumps town ordinances, Eastler said if passed, there will be no leverage in the future to fight the state’s law. Town Manager Richard Davis noted there were positive changes to the amendment that allows for more building and timber harvesting where there wasn’t before. He added that changes, such as striking the one camp regulation be stricken, but Eastler said he wanted to study the entire proposal.
Voters overwhelmingly agreed and the meeting was adjourned.
