CORNVILLE — The town’s treasurer has quit amid an effort to oust her that appears not to be permissible under state law.
Christine Quinn, who was elected to a three-year term in March 2024, submitted her resignation May 9, according to Melvin Blaisdell, chair of the Cornville Board of Selectmen.
Quinn said in her resignation email that her planned last day was to be Friday, Blaisdell said. The select board does not plan to formally accept the resignation until a meeting on Monday, he said.
Quinn cited her other full-time work obligations as the reason for her departure.
But her resignation also came as town officials faced questions about financial records during this spring’s annual town meeting, which remains unfinished, and an effort to recall Quinn, the legitimacy of which appears questionable under state statute.
In the wake of the resignation, the select board has scheduled a special town meeting for Monday to decide whether the position should be appointed rather than elected.
The meeting, also to include a vote on a proposed $4,000 purchase of a lawnmower, is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the Cornville Town Hall at 493 West Ridge Road.
Town officials did not fulfill a request for Quinn’s resignation email by press deadline. It was not on file Tuesday at the Town Office, one of the two days of the week it is open. The Morning Sentinel has formally requested it under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.
Efforts to reach Quinn for comment via telephone, text message and email this week were unsuccessful. Quinn responded to one text message Thursday but did not respond to further questions.
Cornville’s financial records, and the town officials who are responsible for them, have been under scrutiny in recent months.
Residents voted to pause the annual town meeting March 1 partway through it. A second attempt at finishing town meeting March 15 was also paused after the approval of one more article.
Most of the spending-related articles on the warrant have been approved at the two attempts at town meeting in March.
Jamie Strout, a Cornville Budget Committee member who said he made the motions to table both meetings, said previously that financial records presented to voters ahead of the March 1 town meeting raised questions, and he was not satisfied with the answers from the three select board members — Blaisdell, Derrick Kinney and Jessica “Jake” Daigneault.
Town officials said after the two attempts at finishing town meeting in March that they are waiting for a financial audit before scheduling a new date.
Blaisdell also said the town was going to buy new financial software in the hope it would help address some questions about the town’s books. Quinn said in April she was seeking more training.
Strout said he was still not satisfied with progress made on addressing his questions, so he organized a petition to recall Quinn.
“We haven’t seen any progress made on the problems with the books that existed before,” Strout said. “A lot of people had come to me and asked, ‘How do we change this? How do we do something about this?’”
Records on file at the Town Office show Strout submitted his notice of intent to recall Quinn on April 3, and the town issued him papers April 8.
Strout gathered 73 signatures from Cornville voters, records show. He said he submitted them to the town May 8.
But those signatures likely had no more significance than just ink on a page. Maine statutes outline a process for the recall of municipal officials that applies when municipalities like Cornville do not have their own recall ordinance or charter.
The provisions only apply “if the official is convicted of a crime, the conduct of which occurred during the official’s term of office and the victim of which is the municipality.”
Quinn has not been convicted of such a crime, according to several town officials.
Kate Dufour, a spokesperson for the Maine Municipal Association, confirmed that towns without their own recall ordinances or charter defer to the requirements of the statute, which she described as “very limited in nature.” As an example, Dufour said an official convicted of embezzling money could face a recall petition.
Cornville Town Clerk Tammy Locke said she came to understand the narrow scope of who can be subject to recall after reading the statute, but she did so only after the town already had issued recall papers.
Strout asked for the petition on a day when she was out of the office sick, Locke said.
Even Strout said he was unsure how legitimate the recall effort was from a legal standpoint. He said he understood the state statute as saying the process it outlines applies only to officials convicted of crimes against their municipalities; for other elected officials, like Quinn, he said he thought a generic citizens’ petition would be sufficient to force a recall vote.
Dufour said that’s not the case.
“I’m not 100% sure, right or wrong, or how it would’ve stood up if it had gone to a vote,” Strout said. “That’s what I had to work with.”
Blaisdell said that Quinn ultimately resigned before the recall effort, however legitimate it was, proceeded any further.
Blaisdell said the select board now wants town voters to consider changing the treasurer position from elected to appointed to make sure that whoever holds the position next has sufficient time to dedicate to the position.
The part-time job, Quinn had estimated previously, requires about four hours per week.
Kinney, one of the other select board members, said he thought it was a good idea to leave it to the town voters to decide.
“I would like to open discussion,” Kinney said. “And it’s worked well with our road commissioner, so it may work well in this situation as well.”
The town’s annual audit, meanwhile, remains ongoing, Blaisdell said. The auditors the town hired have begun their work but have not yet finished a report.
“It’ll be a couple more weeks, probably,” Blaisdell said of the audit.
A third town meeting date to finish the original March 1 warrant has not yet been scheduled.
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