Somerset County officials are hoping the third time’s the charm this November when voters from Skowhegan to Jackman will weigh in once again on whether to change the county’s register of deeds from an elected office to an appointed one.

The Nov. 4 ballot question may feel like déjà vu: For the third year in a row the county’s Board of Commissioners has put forth a version of the question. Voters rejected changing the position to appointed in both 2023 and 2024.

This time around, county officials are hoping that clearer messaging and the public support of the incumbent register will sway voters to give up their right to choose the person who oversees an ever-growing, centuries-old library of real estate records like property transfers, mortgages and liens housed in Skowhegan.

“It boils down to trust,” said Tanya Belanger, who was hired as the registry’s office manager in 2023 and won the register position as a write-in candidate in 2024. “I think the voters are concerned that their vote is being taken away. I sympathize with that — that’s not something we would normally want. But this situation is different, and I just ask that (voters) really look into it and see if they can consider looking at it in a different way.”

WAIT, THE REGISTER OF WHAT?

The register of deeds is among a slate of county positions, including treasurer, register of probate and probate judge, that in Maine tend not to draw contested races or grab headlines. Sheriff and district attorney are the only elected positions in the state’s unique system of county government that tend to come with a higher profile. 

Somerset County officials say the register of deeds is an important position that requires a qualified person to do the job well. They’ve had trouble recently finding someone with both the skills for the job and the political will to collect the hundreds of signatures required to appear on the ballot.

State statute dictates that voters in Maine’s 16 counties elect their respective register of deeds. Most counties have one; Aroostook County has two, one for its northern half and one for its southern half.

Unlike in all other Maine counties, elected positions in Somerset County government are nonpartisan, per the county charter. The only exception is district attorney because of that office’s shared jurisdiction with Kennebec County.

If a majority of voters agrees to change the register of deeds to an appointed office, Somerset County would join Androscoggin, Cumberland and Knox counties, which have done away with electing their registers of deeds through changes to their charters, according to the Maine Department of Secretary of State. 

Those counties also each have an appointed, rather than elected, treasurer. Talks are underway in Washington County to change its treasurer to an appointed position amid recent financial woes that coincided with the previous treasurer’s resignation, The Maine Monitor reported.

“Everything is going well now, which is great, but what if something changed? We need to be able to quickly replace the registrar with a qualified candidate, someone who we knew would do a good job,” Belanger said. “And we can do that if it’s an appointed position.”

YEARS OF TURNOVER

To support their effort to change the position’s status, the Somerset County commissioners have pointed to the expertise required of the register of deeds, especially as technology has progressed. 

They have also pointed out that amid recent turnover in the office, few candidates have stepped forward.

In 2015, then-Register of Deeds Diane Godin, who had held the office since 2001, left the position amid a series of escalating conflicts with fellow county officials.

Laura Price, a longtime deputy register who had run against Godin in 2014, was appointed acting register of deeds to fill the vacancy. Price was elected to the post in 2018, and then ran again as a write-in candidate in 2022.

Price had been planning to leave the post and only ran in 2022 because nobody else submitted nomination papers to appear on the ballot, County Administrator Tim Curtis and District 1 Commissioner Robert Sezak, the board chairman, said.

Price resigned in June 2023, just a few months into a four-year term ending in 2026. That led to the July 2023 appointment of Erica Rowe, who had previously been a clerk in the office. Rowe’s appointment was made via a caucus of municipal officials, a process dictated by the Somerset County charter.

Meeting minutes show she was offered a contract the next month, following an executive session of the Board of Commissioners.

In September 2023, Rowe resigned, leaving the register of deeds position vacant once again.

The county commissioners, considering the turnover in the registry, then posed a referendum question to voters, asking them to “abolish” the elected position and replace it with one appointed by the commissioners.

About 60% of the approximately 13,000 Somerset County voters who cast ballots in the November 2023 referendum rejected it, according to results provided by the Maine Department of the Secretary of State.

The five commissioners decided against holding another municipal caucus to fill the vacancy , Curtis said previously, while county officials worked to keep the registry running until the vacancy could be filled during the November 2024 election.

The commissioners, meanwhile, hired Belanger as the Registry of Deeds’ office manager, and Deputy Register Arlene Demo, who has decades of experience in the office, was sworn in as acting register. One full-time clerk and one part-time clerk also staff the office.

The commissioners returned to the drawing board in 2024, tweaking the ballot question language to sound more positive. The Department of the Secretary of State reviewed and approved the changes, emails among elections and county officials show.

BACK TO THE BALLOT

Voters still were not convinced — but it was close. 

Of the 28,865 voters who cast ballots, 49% rejected the change, while 44% voted in favor of it. The rest of the ballots were left blank.

The county commissioners unanimously decided to put the referendum before voters again this year after the secretary of state’s office reached out this summer to see if counties had any referendum questions to add to the state ballot.

This year’s referendum has the same wording as last year and will appear on the same page as two state referendum questions. “Shall the Somerset Register of Deeds position be changed from an elected position to a position selected through a competitive hiring process, then appointed by the Board of Commissioners?” the question reads.

In the 2024 election, Belanger, of Bingham, was elected register of deeds as a write-in candidate. No candidates appeared on the ballot, and Belanger said at the time she did not collect signatures because she was still learning the job when nomination papers were available. 

Belanger’s partial term runs through the end of 2026; she said she could not answer yet whether she would run again if voters reject the referendum.

Belanger now holds a bifurcated position: the office manager role is full-time, while the register of deeds position is simply to meet statutory requirements and comes with an annual $5,000 stipend. County Treasurer Tracey Rotondi also has a similar split arrangement between her elected office and a professional position in the finance office.

State law says nothing about how much the register of deeds must work. It spells out only the position’s official responsibilities. The split position means if it stays an elected one, and another person wins in 2026, Belanger could theoretically still keep her full-time job as office manager.

“But it is ideal to have the office manager and the registrar be the same person,” Belanger said.

Belanger said Demo, the deputy register, and Price, the former register, both support the change and voiced their support in videos filmed by the local public access TV station.

She said she hopes voters will trust those with experience who support making the position appointed.

“The commissioners are passionate about it. Our administrator is passionate about it. We in the office — all of my staff … are for it,” Belanger said. “It just makes sense for our county.”