WATERVILLE — A proposed ordinance that would ban city employees from cooperating with federal immigration agents will return to the city council in July after it’s redrafted to exclude police officers.

Three out of six councilors present voted to amend the ordinance to exclude law enforcement officials, arguing that state law LD 1971, which will take effect July 14, already prohibits law enforcement from cooperating with immigration enforcement operations unless legally required.

The ordinance would have prevented law enforcement officers from providing immigration enforcement officials access to police facilities, but otherwise would have had the same impact on law enforcement as LD 1971.

After some debate, councilors Brandon Gilley, D-Ward 1; Rebecca Green, D-Ward 4; and Spencer Krigbaum, D-Ward 5, voted to amend the ordinance. With Councilor Samantha Burdick, D-Ward 3, absent, Mayor Michael Morris cast the deciding vote to delay consideration.

Morris said he didn’t want to feel like he was making the decision out of fear. At the last city council meeting, police Chief William Bonney said he worried that if Waterville passed the ordinance, the federal government could retaliate by withholding funding. So far, courts have largely blocked President Donald Trump’s attempts at this kind of retaliation.

Instead, Morris said he was making his decision out of “a responsibility for all of our citizens and residents.”

Earlier in the meeting, Councilor Scott Beale, D-Ward 6, said the matter was urgent, and read a letter from Rockland City Councilor Kaitlin Callahan, urging Waterville to adopt the ordinance.

Rockland was the first city in the state to pass an ordinance banning city employees from cooperating with immigration officials. In her letter, Callahan wrote that Rockland’s ordinance has not fractured its community; oppositioncame largely from outside the city, she wrote.

Beale introduced the ordinance after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained asylum seekers in Maine. He said his support is rooted in the military oath he took to defend the Constitution and continues to feel bound to.

Councilor Cathy Herard, D-Ward 7, said she didn’t want to waste the city’s money and time by paying city solicitor Bill Lee to amend the ordinance he already wrote.

Five out of about 40 residents at the meeting urged city councilors to pass the ordinance Tuesday, and one urged them to vote no Tuesday. Three others asked city councilors to postpone the vote and amend the ordinance, and one spoke generally against the ordinance.

City councilors will consider the revised ordinance when they meet at 6 p.m. on July 21 at the City Hall Annex on Front Street.