CAPE ELIZABETH, Maine — A group of residents in Cape Elizabeth is threatening to take legal action against the town council—and, by extension, the town—over a proposal to renovate the town’s school buildings that was submitted by the council chair and undercuts a version approved by the school board.
Earlier this month, the council sent two different school building improvement plans forward for public comment, the next step before a measure can land on the ballot. The first proposal was approved by the school board. It calls for $89.9 million to go toward refurbishing schools in Cape Elizabeth and reconstructing the middle school entirely.
The council approved this plan, but also pushed forward an alternative proposal by the chair, Timothy Reiniger, to instead use $42 million on the school projects and hold off on building a new middle school. The Cape Elizabeth School Board had voted against this plan.
In a letter published Thursday, lawyers representing the group of residents accused the council of acting “indisputably without any authority” by sending Reiniger’s proposal forward.
“It completely upended and circumvented a process that was 18 months long,” Jamie Garvin, a former council chair and supporter of the letter, said Thursday.
The lawyers representing Garvin’s group declined to comment for this story. However, in the letter published Thursday they offered a strong rebuke to the council’s approval of Reiniger’s plan, citing a state law that puts the care and repair of school buildings firmly under the control of the school board.
Because only one school renovation plan earned that board’s approval, the lawyers reasoned, that is the only plan Cape Elizabeth voters should see in November. Any alternative making it on the ballot, the letter argues, “amounts to ballot tampering and election interference.”
Reiniger sees it differently.
“The goal is to give voters a choice,” he said Thursday.
Reiniger argues that because the council has the power to approve funding and financing on town projects, the council has the right to submit an alternative school construction plan without school board approval.
“We will not be deterred from doing our job that’s legally required," he said.
To the argument that the school board must approve any plan before it can reach voters he replied, “that is an incorrect statement of the law.”
Reiniger says he submitted the plan out of concern for cost and feels that residents can’t shoulder the tax increase required by the $89.9 million plan.
“In the view of many people, that’s going to be too expensive for the voters at this time," he argued.
A public hearing on both proposals is scheduled for Monday, July 29.