Millinocket voters will decide next month on a raft of charter revisions that would provide a clear path to remove officials convicted of crimes and clarify who can serve in other positions.
Change is nothing new for the Penobscot County town that lost the paper mill that anchored its economy in 2008 and has lost roughly half of its population since 1970. On Nov. 4, its voters will consider their first update to the town’s founding document in decades.
The package of seven ballot questions includes one that would enable town council, town manager, and school board positions to automatically become vacant if officials are convicted of a felony. Another one would clarify that town managers need not live in Millinocket itself and instead mandate only living within a “safe commuting distance.”
No specific situations motivated those proposals. Discussions on these topics have been going on in other towns, including in Houlton, where the town manager arrested on felony charges was recently placed on administrative leave after protests led to the resignation of most of that town’s council.
Millinocket decided to consider updating its charter in 2021, driven partly by a push to digitize the document. During the review, officials found that the current charter only says that those convicted of crimes involving “moral turpitude” will be removed from office. Town Councilor Matthew Bragdon, who served on the charter committee, said this was “way too open ended.”
“We agreed as a group that a felony, in our eyes, would justify the need for a counselor to be taken off,” he said.
Town managers had previously been required by contract — not the charter — to live in the town’s borders. Bragdon said some community members had pushed for the charter to require residency, but that was rejected in favor of broader language that could be ironed out in future contracts.
Kate Dufour, a lobbyist at the Maine Municipal Association, said that with many municipalities struggling to find managers, such requirements are “falling out of favor” across Maine.
“It’s becoming more difficult to recruit and retain town and city managers, and so sometimes a residency requirement might turn [them] off,” she said, adding that housing and family considerations can make relocation to a specific community difficult.
After dismissing a manager in 2020, Millinocket’s hired town native Peter Jamieson as its manager after a yearlong search. Jamieson lives in town. But he said living close to community members can be harmful to a manager’s personal and family life, especially when neighbors are upset about local politics.
Bragdon said public involvement in the creation of the proposals was limited, and he and others who worked on the changes hope voters will support them. Among the other proposals is one to require town council members and school board members to be registered voters in town.
“This has been a pretty fun process,” Bragdon said. “I’m very hopeful that the changes we have will pass.”
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
