Rebuttal to the town’s attorney review of citizen ordinanc
To the Editor;
The constitutional rights of Sangerville’s appointed officials are still intact. Our constitutional rights have been violated through deception for two years now.
Our ordinance is based on the Maine State Recall Statute — Recall of Municipal Officials (Elected and Appointed). Maine State Statute and the legislators has had no issues with the elected and appointed officials being included. On June 1, 2015 the town’s attorney had no issues with the appointed officials being included. On June 11, 2015, the town’s attorney had no issues with the appointed officials being included, and advised us to petition. The Sangerville Maine Recall Ordinance (ID# 52651B), has a built in safety net, to protect the constitutional rights of the appointed officials. The Maine state laws are still in place, the state and federal constitutional laws are still in place.
The Board of Selectmen took an oath of office to comply with and uphold the Main state laws and the Constitution. You can petition for anything to anybody you wish, be it the Board of Selectmen, the Governor of Maine, the legislators, or the U.S. President.
This Ordinance states the due process of law to recall town officials. It includes: Your petitioned request must be addressed to the Board of Selectmen. You must have due cause or you will not get signatures on your petition. You have to get the consensus of the citizens by way of the petition to remove an elected or appointed official. You have options, you may ask the Board to do their job and honor the petitioners’ request to remove the appointed official, or call for a special town meeting to put it to vote, or you may request to put it to vote at the annual town meeting to remove the elected or appointed official through this process.
The Board may reasonably refuse to honor the petitioners’ request if it violates the appointed official’s legal rights. If you feel the Board has unreasonably refused to honor your petition, you may petition a notary public to call a special town meeting to honor the petitioners request, and place the article or articles on the warrant.
If the Board feels they have reasonably refused to honor the petition, they may apply to the court for a declaratory judgment. If the appointed official feels he has been violated, be it by the Board of Selectmen or by the voters, he may file to the court for a declaratory judgment or a court hearing.
The Warrant Article 14 should not have the town’s attorney opinion letter attached to it, because that was before an alternative ordinance or a remedy amendment was offered to the Board of Selectmen to correct the question of appointed officials’ rights and they unreasonably refused both.
The Warrant Article 15 Is not an alternative ordinance and should have been replaced with the Section 9 Remedy Amendment (ID# 52651C) offered to the Board on March 3, 2016 correcting the town’s attorney’s issues or question on the appointed official’s rights, a very easy fix, if needed at all?
The Warrant Article 15 (Recall Ordinance) is a totally conflicting ordinance and was advised against by the Maine Municipal Association, and never should have been placed on the warrant to begin with.
I have been two years fighting and standing up for our constitutional rights, to get our Recall Ordinance in front of you to vote on, with nothing but interference, to this day we are still getting resistance from at least two board members, and our constitutional rights are still being violated by deception. Ask yourself why so much resistance from the Board of Selectmen?
Richard R Dobson Sr.
Sangerville