FREEPORT – No formal groups have formed in Freeport to campaign for or against the town leaving Regional School Unit 5. Yet.

But two months remain until residents decide on Nov. 4 if they want to withdraw. And despite the vote last December to explore that possibility, there’s a diversity of opinion on the issue that was evident last week at a public hearing on the withdrawal proposal.

Rod Regier, the 2009 Citizen of the Year in Freeport, is among those in town who think it’s a bad move.

Regier, speaking during the Aug. 26 hearing at the Freeport Community Center, said he has spoken with many Durham and Pownal residents who are fed up with the process that led to a withdrawal agreement last month. Freeport High School will suffer because of that, he said. Durham and Pownal students will have school choice if Freeport withdraws.

“I think that we should be prepared for a substantial dip in the enrollment,” Regier said.

Shari Broder quickly responded that she disagreed, and that a fair compromise was reached between the Withdrawal Committee and the RSU 5 Working Group.

Town officials, meanwhile, have work to do in the next two months. They must come up with some semblance of a stand-alone Freeport school budget and have it ready for another public hearing, to be called by the Town Council at least 10 days prior to the Nov. 4 vote.

Rich DeGrandpre, a councilor who served on the Withdrawal Committee, said that work has just begun on a Freeport-only school budget. Abbe Yacoben, finance director for the town, and Kelly Wentworth, director of finance for RSU 5, are working together on a financial analysis, DeGrandpre said. Those preliminary budget numbers were to be unveiled at the Sept. 2 Town Council meeting, which was held after the Tri-Town Weekly’s deadline.

There’s also the matter of electing a Freeport School Committee, should residents approve withdrawal. Peter Murray, chairman of the Withdrawal Committee and an RSU 5 board member, said that residents could elect a school board as early as January. That board would have to get going on a superintendent search, a budget, and a renovation plan for the high school, he said.

The state requires at least three people on a school board, Murray said. But when Freeport ran its own school department prior to the formation of RSU 5 in 2009, the board had seven members.

DeGrandpre said it should be seven.

“There’s way too much work for a three-member board,” he said.

The Aug. 26 meeting, attended by about 50 people from Freeport, Durham and Pownal, lasted less than an hour.

Eric Bryant and Joe Migliaccio, a former town councilor, both spoke in favor of the withdrawal agreement.

“This is a rest button,” Migliaccio said. “Let’s move this forward. Pownal and Durham are always going to be part of our town, our schools.”

Chris Parker of Freeport took a different stand, more in line with Regier’s.

Parker said transportation would be a problem for Durham and Pownal students, and the school would lose students and, in turn, teachers and class offerings.

“I don’t feel it’s in Freeport’s best interest to withdraw,” Parker said.