How important is the date of the next Scarborough Town Council meeting? Very important, if you’re a Scarborough councilor.

With one council member on vacation, the chairman in Texas for work-related training and another with work commitments, some councilors, at a meeting March 5, thought the regular March 19 meeting ought to be canceled. After all, certain expenditure-related items require a 5-2 majority and others would require a at least a majority vote – a unanimous vote if only four members of a seven-member council were in attendance.

And with Councilor Carol Rancourt’s mother’s precarious health a factor, some members feared there wouldn’t even be a quorum.

But a majority of councilors felt deviating from the schedule set at the beginning of the year would be more of a disservice to the public than a four-member council meeting. Particularly vocal was Councilor Sylvia Most, who said the council had never deviated from the schedule in past years and shouldn’t start.

Chairman Jeffrey Messer’s motion to cancel the meeting failed 3-4, with the three councilors who would have missed the meeting – Messer, Ronald Ahlquist and Richard Sullivan – voting in favor.

“Barring the death of my mother, I will certainly be here,” said Rancourt, who with Most, Judith Roy and Michael Wood, voted to keep the scheduled meeting.