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Perham Selectmen Elect Two Alternates to Planning Board But Fail to Acknowledge Their Own Vote and Intend to Revote Later By: David Deschesne Fort Fairfield Journal, July 27, 2011 PERHAM, Maine—The Perham Planning Board currently has five members, but with one anticipated resignation; in Perham, there are supposed to be five members with two alternates. Debra Viola and Tina Bogdanovic recently sent in requests to be on the Perham Planning Board as alternates. Since Leslie Taylor had resigned from the Perham Board of Selectmen, there were currently two members present at the Perham Board of Selectmen's July 13, 2001 meeting - Andrew McLaughlin and Angela Beckwith - which constituted a quorum. At that meeting, McLaughlin made a motion to accept Viola and Bogdanovic as alternates to the Perham Planning Board. It was seconded by Beckwith.After giving her second and entering into the discussion phase of the motion, Beckwith indicated she was a little uneasy with the motion. “The relationship as I understand it, is no matter who is serving on the board of selectmen, there's always been contention [with the Planning Board]. I'm just looking at that. I don't know where to go with this.” Upon the call for a vote, McLaughlin voted to approve and Beckwith - the only other vote - voted to abstain, thinking it would be a tie vote and “deadlock” it until a third selectman could be seated. However, procedures outlined in Robert's Rules of Order (RRO) - the guideline virtually all organizations use to run their meetings - indicate differently.RRO does not use the word “abstain”. If one is present, but does not choose to vote, he or she will simply issue a blank ballot, in the case of written ballot, or state “present” if a voice vote. In Article VIII, Sec. 46 of RRO, it states, “...When a quorum is present, a majority vote (i.e., a majority of the votes cast, ignoring blanks) is sufficient for the adoption of any motion that is in order...” RRO goes on to describe blank votes and how they are treated, “A blank piece of paper is not counted as a ballot and does not cause the rejection of the ballot with which it was folded. Blanks are ignored.” As for voice votes, RRO states, “...The clerk calls the roll and each member, as his or her name is called, rises and answers 'yes' or 'no,' or 'present' if he or she does not wish to vote. The clerk notes the answers in separate columns. When the roll call is completed, the clerk reads the names of those who answered in the affirmative, then of those in the negative, and finally those who answered present.” Since an “abstaining” vote is considered a non -vote, neither affirmative, nor negative, the final tally is only with affirmative and negative votes. Thus, in this case a vote with one affirmative and one abstaining would pass because the affirmative has the majority; indeed, it is unanimous in this case, when one considers abstaining votes are not counted in the vote total since they are “blanks” or “non-votes”. Had Beckwith wanted to tie the vote and defeat the motion, she should have voted “no”, rather than abstain.At present, Viola and Bogdanovic have been technically elected to the Planning Board due to the unanimous “yes” vote by McLaughlin and a non -vote by Beckwith. The Maine Municipal Association handbook, which is also a list of guidelines and recommendations similar to RRO, also concurs with RRO by stating, “The base number on which a majority is calculated is the number of those voting, or the number of ballots cast, not the number of those present (which might include some present but not voting). If 200 voters (not mere residents, but registered voters) are at a meeting but only 100 vote, then 51, not 101, constitutes a majority for most purposes.”Since there were only two selectmen voting at the Perham meeting on Viola and Bogdanovic for Planning Board alternates, and one voted in the affirmative, while the other chose not to vote, according to RRO and the MMA guidelines, the affirmative vote to allow those two on the Planning Board was a unanimous “yes” vote because the abstaining vote is not counted either as a negative, or in the total of votes cast for determining a majority, because abstaining votes are not considered votes at all. However, the Perham selectmen have once again failed to follow procedure and are considering the 100% unanimous vote to approve Viola and Bogdanovic as a defeated vote and plan to revote again in the future when the board of selectmen is back up to three people.
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