About a half-hour into a tense town meeting two years ago, Barbara Norman packed up her computer and put on her jacket.
“I’m done,” she said repeatedly as she gathered her laptop charger.
“We love you, Barb,” one resident of The Forks Plantation said in a consoling tone.
“Yeah, I hear it,” the clerk said sharply on her way out of the wood-paneled office.
Meetings in the remote Somerset County plantation — population 50 or so midway between Skowhegan and the Quebec border — are calmer now. But turnover and poor bookkeeping practices mean auditors are still getting The Forks’ finances in order years after a scandal roiled the community known best for whitewater rafting on a wild part of the Kennebec River.
Norman’s departure was the climax to a bruising revolt against longtime municipal officials auditors said had mishandled public money. The raucous meeting resumed after her walkout. Voters shut the government down and reopened it with new officials months later.
Those officials, some of whom had never held public office, have since worked to clean up the books in town. They are making progress. Ron Smith, an accountant auditing the 2023 finances said the turnover made the audit “a slow process.” He did not say when he would be done.
“What happens in small towns, especially rural towns, is the talent pool is very very thin,” said Marc Roy, a Lewiston-based accountant working to prepare The Forks for 2024 and 2025 audits. “You can’t find people that know basic accounting, let alone the added complexities of governmental accounting.”
Roy said his work consists of checking with local officials to make sure expenditures are explained. He is finished cleaning up the records for the 2024 financial year and is mostly finished with 2025, but is still waiting on the 2023 audit to be completed by Smith’s firm.
Plantations, a local government structure unique to Maine, rule themselves but have more limited power than cities and towns. Charles Hathaway organized the protest in 2023 and is now serving as an assessor, which is equivalent to a selectman or town councilor.
His wife, Susan Hathaway, is the new clerk. She said in addition to hiring outside help to prepare financial reports, the town has improved its website, unlocked the town bulletin board and set up weekly clerk office hours.
“We are really trying as a town to be transparent and accountable,” she said. “I feel like we’re doing excellent.”
Despite living in the tiny community for more than 40 years, Chuck Peabody only began paying attention to local government around the time of the shutdown. Now, he and his wife Sharyn attend assessor meetings regularly. He’s satisfied with the new government’s improvements.
“There was a complete change in the administration and the people that are in there are doing the best they can,” he said. “I’m confident we’re moving in the right direction.”
Not everyone has shared Peabody’s newfound enthusiasm for attending public meetings. While the controversies of 2023 drove majorities of the town to turn out for meetings, the most recent town meeting brought out a modest 19 voters. Few residents now join him to watch Board of Assessors’ meetings. The most recent one handled liquor licenses, a new generator, and allowing ATVs on town roads.
With calm returning and the finances nearly in order, Susan Hathaway said it’s almost time for her and her husband to retire from town government, though Charles has had little trouble securing reelection at town meetings.
“We feel like we’ve done what we intended to do in terms of getting the finances [straightened out] so that there’s some standard that we’re supposed to be following,” she said.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural politics as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
