FREEPORT – The four members of the new Regional School Unit 5 Withdrawal Committee will be appointed this week, setting the stage for a process that could culminate in a vote in November.

The Freeport Town Council was scheduled to appoint three of the four members on Tuesday night, and the RSU 5 directors were to name their committee member the next night. The appointments come after the Tri-Town Weekly’s publication deadline, but the names will be posted on the keepmecurrent.com website.

The council was to name its committee members Jan. 2, but the meeting was postponed due to the weather.

On Dec. 17, Freeport residents voted 953-768 to explore the town’s withdrawal from RSU 5, which also includes Durham and Pownal. The new committee, which will negotiate terms of the withdrawal with RSU 5 and the Department of Education, will consist of a town councilor, a school board member from Freeport, a resident-at-large and a member of Moving Freeport Forward, which led the charge in the withdrawal effort. Moving Freeport Forward has designated Kate Werner as its choice to serve on the committee.

In passing the withdrawal question, voters allocated up to $50,000 to be spent by the RSU Withdrawal Committee. Town Manager Peter Joseph said Monday that most of the money will be paid to consultants, some for legal fees and some for extraneous items, such as travel.

The formation of the committee is the sixth of 22 statutory steps required by the Department of Education for a community to leave an RSU. Once the committee has done its work to the satisfaction of Jim Rier, commissioner of the Department of Education, a second withdrawal vote will take place in Freeport. That vote must take place this year, or a two-thirds majority of Freeport voters must favor withdrawal in order for it to take effect.

Town Manager Peter Joseph gave no indication prior to Tuesday’s meeting who the council might have in mind for the resident-at-large and Town Council seats on the committee.

Nelson Larkins, RSU 5 board chairman, said that one board member has come forward to offer his or her services, but declined to identify that person. Larkins said that whoever sits on the committee from the board does not necessarily have to be in favor of Freeport leaving RSU 5. Freeport board members John Morang, Peter Murray, Valey Steverlynck and Karin Perlotto VanNostrand all have come out publicly in favor of withdrawal. Larkins and Beth Parker have stood against it.

The RSU 5 board also on Wednesday night was to name its non-Freeport board members to a working group that will negotiate the withdrawal process on behalf of Durham and Pownal.

Larkins pointed out that the withdrawal committee is an independent body, not answerable to the Freeport Town Council. The Department of Education, meanwhile, will be watching the process. If it doesn’t unfold in a timely fashion, that could endanger a second vote taking place this year.

Freeport is the only town in RSU 5 with a high school – a high school in need of renovations. Though RSU 5 residents in November approved a $14.6 million bond to upgrade and enlarge the high school, the withdrawal vote puts that money on hold – and in jeopardy.

Rier noted last month that Freeport has traditionally lost students to surrounding school districts, and, apparently, people have been watching. The state allocates aid to school units in part based on the number of students it serves.

“Greely [High School] has already reached out, indicating they’ll take the high school kids from Durham and Pownal,” Larkins said.

Greely High School is located in Cumberland.

Parker said last week she was not interested in sitting on the withdrawal committee, but is interested in remaining part of the process. Parker, who served on the school board prior to the formation of the RSU in 2009, has stood front and center among the people opposed to withdrawal.

“I’ve been on that board for eight years,” Parker said. “I know what it was like. It’s getting better.”

Parker said she wants to help Pownal and Durham residents – as well as Freeport people interested in preserving the RSU.

“I want to make sure the information gets out for the other side,” she said.

Parker also called into question figures used by Moving Freeport Forward. Town-hired consultants Charles Lawton and Jack Turcotte reported that the town would pay an additional $1.6 million in a stand-alone school district.

But Mandy MacPherson and others in Moving Freeport Forward disagree. The town actually could save about $170,000 by operating independently, MacPherson said at a public hearing on Dec. 3.

“A Freeport School Committee, the Freeport Town Council and the Freeport voters would determine the true cost of a Freeport independent school budget,” MacPherson said. “There are certainly many factors to weigh in this withdrawal decision, but the budget should not be something that scares people away from making this decision to further research a viable concrete plan.”

Parker said last week that Moving Freeport Forward is “manipulating numbers.”

The next step in the process calls for the committee to conduct its first meeting on Jan. 30, a date that Larkins said should be no problem. Larkins will chair that meeting until the committee elects a chairman of its own.

The withdrawal committee then will negotiate a withdrawal agreement with RSU 5 and submit that proposal to the commissioner within 90 days. Rier then will have 60 days to either grant conditional approval or recommend changes – the ninth step in the process.