VAN BUREN, Maine – Voters in Van Buren approved a series of revisions to the town’s charter with a vote of 567 to 247, according to results posted via the town’s official social media at roughly 1 a.m. Wednesday.
The town has not updated its charter in about 20 years, according to Paul Nadeau, who was the town council’s charter committee appointee. After this, town officials hope to update the municipal charter once every 10 years.
One of the major changes is a removal of term limits for town officials. As written before, the charter would only let a councilor run for two consecutive terms, after which they would need to wait a year to run again. Nadeau said earlier this year that the committee made this decision as they felt it did not make sense to force someone off the council if their experience and knowledge of town issues was helping the community.
Another major change includes allowing the school board to address board member attendance issues. This is a result of the board having absentee issues in the past.
Town Clerk Jessica Cyr said the revisions also include changing spelling and grammatical errors.
Van Buren saw a strong turnout for this election, with several residents waiting in line before the polls opened at 8 am.
Citizens voted in favor of the first four state referendum questions, but overwhelmingly rejected question five, which asks to change the state flag, with 653 opposed and 221 in favor.
For the presidential election, 448 residents voted for Donald Trump while 429 voted for Kamala Harris. The majority showed support for Angus King as a United States Senator with 461 votes, 441 voted for Jared Golden for Congress. A total of 545 voted for Susan Bernard for State Senator and 476 voted for Roger Albert for State Representative.
