Keller Williams Realty Mid Maine

Mechanic Falls voters to decide budget, select council members

MECHANIC FALLS — A municipal election will be held Tuesday, June 14, to vote on the town's proposed $2.4 million budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and to choose three council members, one RSU 16 director and one sewer district trustee.

This is the first year that townspeople will approve their budget by referendum ballot.

Voters in November approved a charter change that replaced the traditional town meeting with a public hearing on the proposed budget, followed by a referendum ballot that this year contains 34 separate questions.

The budget that voters face, as endorsed at a public hearing held two weeks ago, will not raise the tax rate mainly because it is supported by an infusion of a little more than $300,000 from the town's fund balance.

In addition to providing money to run the town for a year, more than $205,000 of the $2.4 million voters are being asked to approve will be going into reserve for future capital expenditures.

Voters will also decide whether to take money from the fund balance to convert the municipal complex's heating system from an oil-based system to one using wood pellets and to light one of the play fields.

The $95,000 being sought for the conversion to wood would match a grant of an equal amount.

The project to light a ball field could cost as much as $70,000, but supporters have applied for a grant for about half that amount and, should the grant not materialize, have said they intend to hold fundraisers to repay the town a significant portion of the $70,000 it is upfronting.

Municipal elections

This year voters will be electing three persons to seats on the town council.

Louis Annance is the lone candidate on the ballot for a two-year seat on the council, a vacancy created when Peter Ford Sr., who was elected to the council just a year ago, announced in April that he would resign at the end of June.

There are five candidates for the two three-year council seats that were scheduled to be up for election.

Dan Blanchard, the council's current chairman, is seeking re-election to his third term. He is a retired Auburn police officer, has worked as a part-time fire investigator, liquor and tobacco inspector, and as a private investigator. He works part-time as a charter bus driver.

He graduated from Lewiston High School and studied criminal justice in the University of Maine system.

He has served three years on the School Committee in addition 15 years on the council.

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