By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — Among the ordinances to be discussed at tonight’s public hearing in Limestone at 6:30 p.m. in room B101 at the Limestone Community School are the Fireworks ordinance and the recall ordinance — both discussed during the May 1 Selectpeople’s meeting.
With fireworks already lighting up the early May sky, the selectpeople reviewed the proposed ordinance for fireworks, with input from Limestone Police Chief Stacey Mahan.
The proposed ordinance primarily shores up specification on dates and times, but does not institute any sort of permit process, which Mahan has hoped for.
“The application for a permit really alleviates the town’s liability,” Mahan explained. “[The permit holder] agrees to all the steps and holds them accountable if [the fireworks] go into the neighbor’s yard and starts a problem, or goes into a field and starts a fire; in my opinion, it covers the town and the liability thereof.”
Selectperson Marilyn King, who was the ordinance review committee chair, explained that the group decided against a permit in a 4-2 vote and said “The majority of the committee thought that last year was the exceptional year because it was the first year, and that things would simmer down a little bit this year, however [the fireworks] have already started and I’ve already heard about it.”
“The committee thought that they could do without [a permit] for this year and see how it goes,” King explained.
Though fireworks season is just starting up again, the board was quick to discuss how fireworks have already made the news this year after revelers reportedly caused a fire to break out in Ashland on April 30.
King suggested that a sample of the suggested permit be available at tonight’s public hearing, should the community wish to see it.
“That’s something that we could perhaps have the permit there and say ‘this is something we talked about, but the majority of the committee members didn’t think it was necessary’ but let the townspeople [decide],” King said. “There were six of us on the committee but there are many more people in town, so let them have a little input on it and see what they think,” she added.
Committee member Jim Cote attended the meeting and elaborated on the intent of the committee to not have fireworks permits issued.
“I think one of the issues was were the police going to issue the permit or was the fire department? Either way, it’s kind of lost because if the police issue the permits and the fire department gets called out, the [fire department] won’t necessarily know where to go either, and the same way vice versa,” Cote explained.
Mahan explained that a plan had been touched upon by himself and Limestone’s Fire Chief Paul Durepo to make sure each dispatching agency knew if a permit was issued.
Where the police department is dispatched through the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Department and the fire department is dispatched through Caribou, Mahan described how each dispatching agency receiving the initial permit notice would fax a copy to the other dispatch agency — ensuring that both dispatching agencies would be able to inform responding emergency personnel if a fireworks permit had been issued.
Mahan also clarified questions as to whether permits should be issued through the fire department or the police department.
“We wouldn’t be the only police department in the state of Maine that does something with fireworks — I feel very confident about that,” he said, adding his opinion that the police department would be the logical place to issue fireworks permits as the police department is easier for the public to access.
The board also discussed the recall ordinance, which King said the town’s attorney only made one major change to.
“The only thing he changed differently that I can see in this is that instead of five people, if there’s [a single] citizen here tonight that wants to recall one of us, then you just go see [Town Clerk Marlene Durepo] and give her lots of good reasons,” King explained.
Originally the committee had stipulated that five people would need to see the town clerk in order to take out a recall petition, and ignoring the lawyers advice, the selectpeople agreed to maintain the ordinance change as it was originally written by the committee.
“We said five,” King explained. “In other words, it would take five citizens to come up and sign an affidavit with [the Town Clerk] to recall.”
Cote explained that throughout the ordinance revision process, King had been in contact with the Maine Municipal Association’s lawyers to get opinion on several items.
“There’s two different lawyers that picked up on things down there and they both had different opinions on the same article — completely different,” he said, explaining that he wasn’t necessarily refering to the recall ordinance. “[The changes made by the town’s lawyer] could mostly be his opinion too, so it’s whatever you people want to put in there,” Cote added. “It’s probably up to a judge afterward to decipher the legalness of it at the end.”
The town’s lawyer, Richard Solman, had noted on the front page that “since it takes 25 percent of voters to trigger a recall election, I feel the five-person provision was unnecessary,” as read during the meeting by selectperson Gary O’Neal.
Town Manager Donna Bernier expressed her concern that unlike the proposed changes to the other ordinances, which were pretty much in the same context, “it looks like he completely re-wrote the recall ordinance,” she said. “There’s a lot of changes in that one.”
King explained that the changes were minimal.
“What he did, we were rather verbose in some of our wording and he made it a little more terse, a little more concise and [more of legal terms] were put into place,” King explained, adding that she didn’t see much change in the ordinance other than the suggestion of changing the five-person requirement to implement a recall down to one-person.
The selectpeople also agreed to look into a suggested addition to the ordinance, proposed by Selectperson Jesse Philbrick.
“I think that whoever the five is that takes out the petition — they ought to be the only ones allowed to circulate it,” he said.
King was uncertain as to whether or not the change could be made, explaining that when someone’s running for office, “you can have 10 people come up and circulate it as long as they’re the only one circulating that paper.”
The board agreed to see if it’s legal to limit the number of people circulating the petition to just the five who initially issued the recall.
The public hearing on the proposed ordinance changes will take place tonight at 6:30 in room B101 of the Limestone Community School.
