Six residents are running for vacant seats on the Milo Select Board after a cluster of resignations earlier this month left just one member overseeing the town.
The town is holding a special election June 3 to fill seats left vacant after Stephanie Hurd, Susan Libby, Donald Banker and Eric Foss resigned over the course of a week, leaving chairperson Paula Copeland as the board’s only remaining member. She was elected and chosen as chair on March 11.
Leland McMannus and Valerie Robertston are vying for a three-year seat on the board. Whoever is elected will serve through the remainder of the term expiring in March 2027.
There is also a vacancy for a two-year term expiring in March 2026, for which Anthony Heal and Shannon Lord are running.
Tammie Anders and Brian Surette are on the ballot to fill two seats with one-year terms that expire in March 2025.
The resignations came about two months after a group of residents initiated a process to remove Banker, the former chairperson, from the board following a March 7 meeting involving him, Foss and Libby that appeared to violate Maine’s public access law.
Not all of the former members disclosed their reasons for resigning, but Hurd told the Bangor Daily News it was partly because of the fallout from the meeting that caused controversy in town.
The special election is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, June 3, at the municipal office. Nomination papers were due Wednesday, and those seeking a spot on the ballot needed to get from 25 to 50 signatures from Milo residents, Town Clerk Betty Gormley said.
Whoever is elected will join Copeland, who in an April 22 statement referred to the March 7 meeting, where Libby, Banker and Foss discussed “many appropriate things,” as “illicit.”
The Bangor Daily News obtained a video of the meeting through a records request. In the video, which shows the three former members in the town office lobby, they discuss the town manager’s performance and when to vote against renewing his contract, the police chief’s “whining,” and the public works schedule.
