Bar Harbor Warrant Committee Nominates and Appoints Bailey Stillman
Public Safety Subcomittee Meets Friday to Focus on Those Budget Sections
BAR HARBOR—And, he’s in. Bailey Stillman has returned to the Warrant Committee.
The Warrant Committee’s Nominating Subcommittee met Monday to nominate a new member to take the place of Caleb Cough who recently resigned just prior to the beginning of budget season.
According to Town Clerk Liz Graves, those who had expressed an interest were Erin Cough, Charles Sidman, Bailey Stillman, Nate Young, and Drew Zimmerman. All have been registered voters for over a year in Bar Harbor. Caleb Cough’s term was scheduled to end June 2024. He served on the Governance Subcommittee, chaired by Carol Chappell.
“It’s been well over three years since the Nominating Committee met,” Warrant Committee Chair Seth Libby said Monday evening, and he handed out paper ballots to the voting members of the subcommittee. Nominating Subcommittee members wrote down who they preferred. The voting members were Libby, Vice Chair Julie Berberian, Secretary Christine Smith, and Chappell.
Smith said she appreciated that so many people were interested in being on the committee.
The papers came back with three votes for former Warrant Committee member Bailey Stillman and one vote for former Police Chief Nathan Young.
“It’s a vote for Bailey,” Libby said.
The committee then unanimously voted via roll call (voice vote) to put Stillman forward to the full Warrant Committee at its 7 p.m. meeting.
At the full Warrant Committee things became a bit more complicated. First, new committee member Shaun Farrar asked about the process and if there were individual emails from candidates and if they could be dispersed. Libby said that there were emails, but they were sparsely written and mostly declarations of interest. Those papers were then passed around and read by the committee members prior to their votes on the nominated candidate. Member Ezra Sassaman asked about the nominating group’s decision-making process to choose this candidate.
Member Kathleen St. Germain asked if another person could be nominated and she nominated Erin Cough.
The committee then split 9-5 in an unbinding voice vote over who they preferred. Stillman received nine votes to Cough’s five. Those voting for Cough were Kevin DesVeaux, Farrar, Eben Salvatore, Kathleen St. Germain, and Jeff Young. The committee then appointed Stillman, 13-1. Farrar voted against the motion.
Previously, according to Graves, “Bailey Stillman was appointed midway through the 2020-2021 year to fill a vacancy on the Bar Harbor Warrant Committee. According to the voter registration database, he was registered to vote in Mount Desert at the time. That was an error no one caught.”
The error was found when he came in to the clerk’s office for nomination papers in 2021, a time when the Warrant Committee election process changed from members being voted in as a slate to being voted in as individuals. Libby said, during the meeting, that Stillman was living in Bar Harbor, but there was a one-year residency requirement to run. This is in the town’s charter.
According to Graves, Stillman has been a Bar Harbor registered voter since June 2, 2021.
Warrant Committee members Meagan Kelly, Chair Seth Libby, Kathleen St. Germain, and Ezra Sassaman all have terms ending in 2024. Their seats will be filled at the June elections.
THE BUDGET QUESTIONS
Town Manager James Smith challenged the committee to think big picture and policy-level when looking at the proposed budget, though the devil might be in the details when they are going through their upcoming budget discussions in committees and subcommittees. That would be helpful to him and town staff, he said.
During the rest of the Warrant Committee meeting, the town manager and Finance Director Sarah Gilbert fielded questions about Comprehensive Plan implementation, vacation rental fees, donations for Conners Emerson School construction, payments in lieu of taxes, and fiber build-out and a potential housing project with Acadia National Park in Town Hill. He mentioned that the Town Council will talk about short-term rental fees tonight, February 6, at its 6:30 meeting at the Bar Harbor Municipal Building.
The role of the Warrant Committee according to its bylaws is to:
“It shall be the duty of any duly elected Warrant Committee to consider, investigate, and report upon (with recommendations or comments) all articles, except those dealing with the election of candidates, in the warrant of all Town Meetings, whether annual or special. When requested to do so, it shall be the duty of Town officers and committees to meet with the Warrant Committee or any of its subcommittees and to furnish all information relative to matters being considered by said Warrant Committee or subcommittee.
“The recommendations of the Warrant Committee pertaining to all warrant articles shall be provided to the Town Meeting as set forth in Charter § C-5 Annual and Special Town Meetings [C-5 C.(1)(a) and C-5 C. (2)(b)]. The Warrant Committee shall also submit its recommendations on the preliminary municipal budget to the Town Council as provided by Charter § C-31, Preparation and submission of the budget. The Warrant Committee shall also provide recommendations to Town Meeting on the entire annual budget adopted by the Town Council as required by Charter § C-10. A. (5) General powers and duties.”
THE MONDAY MEETINGS
The Nominating Committee had an initial Zoom link for its meeting, thanks to Warrant Committee Secretary Chris Smith’s Zoom account, but the regular Warrant Committee meeting did not. Graves said that the second meeting wasn’t going to be Zoomed because of a lack of staff support. Staff typically runs Zoom webinars when members can’t attend in person and sometimes to keep it open to the public if a meeting of elected officials can’t be streamed.
Chris Smith volunteered to support the full committee meeting via her Zoom account. There was no video for either meeting, just audio. This allowed members Bob Chaplin and Jeff Young to attend and also members of the public. There was one member of the public and two reporters attending via Zoom for both meetings.
UPCOMING WARRANT SUBCOMMITTEE MEETINGS
The Public Safety Subcommittee, which discusses the police, fire, dispatch, and ambulance budgets will meet at 4 p.m. on Friday, February 9, in the conference room on the third floor of the Municipal Building. It is not currently on the town’s calendar or in the town’s website agenda center, but the meeting was discussed on February 5. It is open to the public.
Disclosure: My husband and Bar Harbor Story writer is on the town’s Warrant Committee. We are not the same person and often have very different opinions on many things.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WARRANT COMMITTEE
List of members is here.
Town Charter Article VII, Warrant Committee
Warrant Committee members and the Town Manager can be emailed via warrant@barharbormaine.gov