Buxton voters in next week’s election will elect a slate of municipal officers and decide whether to eliminate one town committee and trim the size of another.
The polls will be open 6 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday at Town Hall, 185 Portland Road. Voters will meet at 5:30 a.m. to select a moderator before polls open. The annual town meeting to consider the town’s budget will convene at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 14.
Selectmen Bob Libby and Chairwoman Jean Harmon are seeking reelection to three-year terms. Keith Emery, vice chairman of the Planning Board and a town employee in the Public Works Department, is vying for a seat in the three-way race for the two available seats.
There’s also a race for two, three-year terms on the Planning Board. Caroline Segalla is seeking reelection with two challengers, David Savage and Emily Walsh.
In uncontested races, Town Clerk John Myers Jr. is seeking another three-year term and his sister-in-law, Susan L. Myers, is seeking reelection as tax collector for three years.
Penny Booker and Richard Emery Jr., an incumbent, are candidates for three-year Budget Committee seats with four openings available. Dora Clements is the only candidate for a two-year seat on the Budget Committee. There’s no candidate for a one-year Budget Committee term.
The Budget Committee has 11 members with one vacancy. Four terms are expiring this year, but three members, Peters Burns, Brian Dyer and Christopher Willey, are not seeking reelection.
John Myers said Tuesday selectmen have had to make appointments in recent years to fill positions on the Budget Committee because not enough candidates have been on the ballot. In a proposed charter change, voters will decide whether to cut the number of Budget Committee members from 12 to seven, each for a three-year term.
The fate of the Personnel Review Committee will be determined by voters, who are being asked to change the charter, eliminating the committee. Wanda Emery, a former committee member, said this week that the committee was established to screen resumes and applications for municipal jobs. She said the committee was designed to select a list of three job applicants and present the list to selectmen.
The Personnel Review Committee was established in 1983 and consists of five elected members with staggered terms of 3 years each. However, this year Marie L. Clements is the lone candidate for one year while there were no nominations for three-year and two-year terms.
“There’s been quite a few openings not filled each year,” John Myers said.
For the Maine School Administrative District 6, no one turned in nomination papers for either a three-year term or a one-year term as a director. Buxton has four seats on the SAD 6 board.
Dennis Santolucito was appointed as a school director last year to fill a vacancy, but he’s not running for reelection. “It was more of a time commitment issue,” Santolucito said Tuesday. “I enjoyed it.”
James Smith Jr. is the other school director not seeking reelection.
Voters in the five SAD 6 towns approved a $40.3 million budget on May 13 in a special referendum. In Buxton, the school budget passed 206-129. Only 335, 5.6 percent of 5,960 registered voters, cast ballots in a low voter turnout.
In past years, the school budget had been considered in a district-wide referendum in the June election. The other SAD 6 towns are Hollis, Frye Island, Limington and Standish.
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