Buckfield to have special town meeting on election day

BUCKFIELD – Three candidates have thrown their hat into the ring for an open selectman position in Buckfield, town clerk Cindy Dunn told reporters after a Tuesday meeting of the selectboard.

John Lowell and Will Deane have already returned petitions to the town office, while Martha Catevenis has taken a candidate packet, but not yet returned the information. Other candidates have until September 28 to file their intent to run.

The election will be held in conjunction with statewide elections on November 2, at which time a special town meeting will also be held to pass an ordinance that will allow resident homeowners to take advantage of grant funding for green energy initiatives.

The funding is available as part of the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) initiative, under which Town Manager Glen Holmes has announced a goal of improving 100 homes over the course of the next 36 weeks. Under the program, residents can receive grant funding and educational assistance for a wide range of energy-efficiency improvements.

The selectboard tabled the approval of a closely-watched ethics policy that will govern municipal employees. The board had asked for feedback from the affected town entities, and had received a response from the fire department, the recreations committee, and the planning board.

“The Planning Board voted to affirm the ethics policy,” said Holmes. “...The fire department feels that they have codified the information in their own Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) guidelines.”

Selectwoman Eileen Hotham asked whether the FD employees had to sign onto their SOP, and Holmes responded that it was reviewed with each new member of the department.

“The Recreation Committee feels that the ethics policy, with some minor tweaking, is something that they could support,” said Holmes.

Holmes distributed a letter from the committee, which was largely focused on identifying and discouraging conflicts of interest by town employees. Selectman Chip Richardson resigned from the selectboard earlier this year amid charges that he had improperly acted with a conflict of interest.