Selectman Glenn “Bear” Zaidman wants to bring his resolution to make Bridgton a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary” back before the board and questioned why he was told he couldn’t.
“I believe that our Constitution and our Bill of Rights are under attack in more ways than one,” Zaidman reiterated at Tuesday’s meeting, two weeks after his resolution failed on a tie vote.
Selectboard members Paul Tworog and Carmen Lone voted March 9 against Zaidman’s resolution to create the sanctuary to oppose “unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms for its citizens,” and Zaidman and Fred Packard voted in favor. Chairperson Liston “Lee” Eastman, who would have cast the tiebreaking vote, was absent, but said later he would have voted for it.
Declaring the town a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary would have “no effect on the law,” according to Geoff Bickford, an attorney and director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition.
“Some folks have said that some of the Amendments are not under attack, that is their opinion. It might not be under attack in their minds,” Zaidman said.
He did not provide details on what the “attacks” are, nor did any members of the board mention the shootings in the Atlanta area that killed eight people and another mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., that killed 10 one week and one day earlier.
Zaidman said it was not his intention Tuesday to get another vote on the resolution at that meeting, but he questioned Town Manager Bob Peabody’s apparent rejection that the resolution could not be “renewed.”
According to Robert’s Rules of Order, the parliamentary procedures the Selectboard follows, renewing a motion is the only method by which to put a motion back on the table after it has been defeated.
Zaidman said that when he approached Peabody following the March 9 vote about renewing his motion to adopt the resolution, Peabody told him that he would be challenged.
Peabody said defeated motions cannot be brought up again until after the next board is sworn in “so that things don’t come up meeting after meeting after meeting.”
Zaidman said he “will not renew this motion at least for the next couple of weeks” and would seek clarification.
Tworog, who voted against the resolution, said that resolutions are not typically of a “controversial” nature.
“The usual intent is to do it on an item that the town is basically in agreement on because as soon as this type of resolution passes, it brands the town as a whole with that,” he said.
Tworog said he reviewed all of the letters for public comment sent to the board and of those, 30 residents wrote in favor of the resolution and 55 “wrote on the record” that they were against it.
“In this case, those put in writing overwhelmingly rejected the idea of doing this resolution,” he said.
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