ROME — Residents and landowners sent a clear message at a public meeting Tuesday that the town should continue the fight against two companies that have sued the town about its denial of a permit to build a cellphone tower on The Mountain, which overlooks Great Pond and could be visible from many areas of town.

They sent mixed messages about how to pay for it, however.

The town has only $8,200 left of $50,000 appropriated for legal fees at the Town Meeting in March and not much surplus to tap into, selectmen warned.

Selectmen voted 3-0 Tuesday at a selectmen’s meeting after a public input session to schedule a special town meeting to ask residents to authorize the town to accept gifts or donations — for any purpose, but presumably to help the town fund its legal fight in the tower dispute.

Selectman Richard LaBelle said residents at the special town meeting won’t be asked to raise more tax dollars or take town money from surplus to pay for legal fees in the court battle, just to accept donations if they are made.

The special town meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. July 20 at the Rome Community Center.

Peter Schultz, chairman of the appeals board and a former selectman, urged the approximately 45 attendees at the meeting, held to get input on what selectmen should do about the legal matter and the bills resulting from it, not to let corporations with deep pockets divide their little town.

“Some people have expressed, ‘What a shame the democratic process works like this,'” Schultz said. “This is not a democratic process. It’s capitalism. It’s somebody trying to tear apart our community. We have a responsibility to stand up to that. We need to stand proud and tall in this moment and think about Rome as something that pulls us together, not tears us apart, which is something these guys would like to have by threatening us with their wallets.”

No one at the meeting said the town should stop its legal defense or cease spending money in the two lawsuits.

However, there was no consensus among those who gave their input on whether the town should hold a special town meeting to appropriate more money from surplus or take other steps to raise more money in case it is needed in the ongoing legal battle.

Some said the $8,200 the town has left should be enough to stay in the legal fight in federal court until a decision is made, and the town should reassess what to do in another, state-level lawsuit about the same issue once it has a decision in the federal case.

So far the town has spent nearly $70,000 on the two cases and appeals filed by the two companies.

“It sounds like we’re close to a decision at the federal court, and we’ve been very successful in court hearings so far,” said Jack Schultz, a Planning Board member. “It’d be criminal to capitulate before we get this ruling out of federal court. I suspect we’ll be pleased with what happens in Boston, but we don’t know. Better to stay where we are till we find out. Get the ruling and regroup.”

Selectman Kelly Archer said the board wanted to speak to residents and get input from them before the legal account is drained.

LaBelle warned that the town has $419,000 in its surplus account, and the town’s auditor recommends having at least $467,000 in that account — the equivalent of two months’ operating costs.

Using funds from the surplus account to pay legal bills would require residents’ voted approval.

“That leaves us $47,000 short of where we should be in terms of surplus already,” LaBelle said. “We’re not comfortable overspending without getting input from townspeople. Our surplus is already low. How much lower are we willing to go to prevent this tower from going up?”

Will Keliher said blocking the tower isn’t what the issue is all about. Rather, he said, it is about defending the town’s ordinances. He said giving in would send a message that applicants with projects that don’t meet the standards of the town’s ordinances when they are applied fairly can do whatever they want if they have enough money to outspend the town in court.

“You can’t run a town like that. You absolutely can’t,” he said. “This is not about whether a tower goes up. It’s whether we believe in and defend our ordinances.”

Resident Chris Cook said the town might be able to resolve both lawsuits by spending an additional $12,000 to $15,000, but the town only has $8,000. She said she was comfortable taking the additional funds needed from surplus.

Dave McClay said the town also could try other sources of funding, such as setting up a fund people could donate to or seeking help from outside organizations that specialize in municipal rights.

Archer said it could be a few weeks or a couple of months before the town learns the result of the lawsuits.

Two telecommunications companies, Global Tower Assets LLC, of Boca Raton, Florida, and Northeast Wireless Networks LLC, of Winchester, Massachusetts, sued the town and the Rome Planning Board in federal court over the denial of their application to erect the tower.

The two firms claimed that they were victims of discrimination and should have been allowed to provide personal wireless services, that the application process was unreasonably long — more than a year — and that any written decision lacked substantial evidence in the written record. The companies hoped to spend an estimated $450,000 on a 190-foot tower on The Mountain, which overlooks Great Pond.

A federal judge rejected that claim last August. U.S. District Court Judge George Z. Singal ruled that the town had not reached a final decision prior to the filing of the federal challenge and that the Rome Planning Board’s review and denial of the tower application did not violate the due process rights of Global Tower and Northeast.

Global and Northeast appealed that ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, saying the Planning Board’s denial was indeed a final action.

The town, in its response to that claim, wants Singal’s decision upheld and says the two companies should have gone to the Rome Board of Appeals rather than directly to federal court.

In the meantime, Global Tower Assets and Northeast Wireless Networks have challenged the town in the state’s Business Court. There the legal wrangling is about both the actions and the composition of the Board of Appeals.

That leaves the town in legal proceedings in both the Business Court and the federal court in Boston with separate lawyers for both.

LaBelle said Tuesday’s public input session was held in part to get the input of Rome’s summer residents, many of whom, he said, would be looking up at the tower if it is installed.

Only residents can vote at a town meeting.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @kedwardskj

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