NEW GLOUCESTER – New Gloucester voters passed an ordinance on Monday that considerably broadens the public’s ability to recall elected officials.

In a 135-59 vote held during the annual town meeting, New Gloucester residents approved an ordinance that grants the public the right to recall any elected official.

Under the ordinance, recall petitioners are required to provide “a general statement of the reason(s) why such removal is sought.” If a 55-percent majority votes in favor of the recall, the targeted elected official is removed.

According to Maine statute, an elected municipal official may be recalled if the individual is convicted of a crime, “the conduct of which occurred during the official’s term of office and the victim of which is the municipality.” With Monday’s vote, New Gloucester joins the ranks of towns and cities that also have a local ordinance governing the recall process.

The recall ordinance, which was submitted by citizens’ petition, was spearheaded by about 10 New Gloucester residents who were motivated particularly by the Nov. 4 Board of Selectmen vote that led to the resignation of bookkeeper Sandra Sacco. Three of the selectmen, Steve Libby, Linda Chase and Nat Berry, voted to cut Sacco’s hours and benefits after a controversial executive session. At its Dec. 2 meeting, facing public opposition amid news of Sacco’s resignation, the board voted to restore the bookkeeper position to its previous, full-time status and to form an ad hoc citizens’ committee to draft a recall ordinance. Sacco has since sued the town.

Monday’s town meeting voters faced two recall propositions. It rejected the ad hoc committee’s competing recall ordinance in a 47-131 vote. That ordinance would have permitted residents to recall selectmen who are convicted of a violation of the town’s code of ethics policy.

Penny Hilton, who helped organize the citizens’ petition for the broader recall ordinance, said members of the group did not trust the selectmen, who appointed the members of the ad hoc committee, to handle drafting the recall ordinance in a forthright manner. Jean Couturier, the chairman of the ad hoc committee, could not be reached for comment.

The triumph of the citizens-initiated ordinance, Hilton said, represents a backlash against Libby, Chase and Berry.

“Not only was it voted in, but it was by an overwhelming majority,” Hilton said. “I think it’s pretty clear that more and more of the townspeople have become aware of and frustrated with the kind of mismanagement mostly by the majority three of the Board of Selectmen.”

“Sandi Sacco was just the last straw,” Hilton added. “People who aren’t inclined to be very political found the Sandi Sacco thing to be the last straw in what’s been a history of several years of abuses of power and mismanagement, things that might have been in the letter of the law but not in the spirit of the law. It’s not one isolated thing.”

Libby, who’s been a member of the board for two decades, could not be reached for comment. Berry said that he believes the citizens’ recall ordinance was started for improper reasons.

“I do not have a problem with a recall ordinance, but I think it was originally started for the wrong reason,” he said. “There’s no doubt that the group that started this have a group of selectmen that they want to recall, and I think that was on their agenda before they even started getting petitions. They have several that they want to get rid of, and I may be one of them.”

But Berry, citing his career as a Maine game warden, said he was not scared by the new ordinance.

“I think there will be a move now to select some selectmen to get a petition to recall,” he said. “They will be targeting certain selectmen. I’m going to be honest with you. I am not intimidated or threatened by this ordinance. I’ve spent 38 years in law enforcement. I’m not intimidated by a group of people that scream, hoot and holler.”

If he, Libby and Chase were recalled, Berry said, it would prove a setback for the town’s affairs.

“If they got a petition and it was enough to recall all three of us then I think it would really upset the progress of what’s going on,” he said.

Hilton said she did not know if a recall effort was under way.

“I don’t want him to be intimidated,” she said. “It’s not my intention that anybody be intimidated. I do think that the vote spoke pretty clearly that this is not just a handful of wild-eyed people. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. What we have is a mechanism that anybody in town can use. I think this whole process has made it very clear the townspeople are really paying attention, and they really want honest government.”

Prior to the town meeting vote, New Gloucester residents raised lawn signs weighing in on the competing ordinances, and a group of anonymous “concerned citizens” mailed a flier to all town residents warning about the dangers of voting for the citizens’ recall ordinance. Quoting Thomas Jefferson’s “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent,” the postcard argued that the citizens’ recall ordinance, “on mere whim of some, could eliminate three of our selectmen and hinder progress in town government.”

At the meeting, the selectmen denied various allegations that they had been involved in the production of the postcard. In an interview, Hilton echoed the allegations.

“Somebody on their behalf sent it out,” she said. “Somebody close to town who had a perception aligned with the threesome. These are, in bits and pieces, the phrases we’ve heard from the core group that support Libby.”

Berry said that the allegations are concerning.

“It bothers me that for some reason they’re not believing what we’re telling them,” he said. “It’s really unfortunate because at the very end of the meeting someone from the back of the room yelled, ‘The majority has spoken.’ And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Yes, the majority has spoken, but when the majority of the selectmen speak they don’t like it.’ It’s a very select group of people that continue pushing this.”