WISCASSET – A group of residents who want the town to withdraw from Regional School Unit 12 has gathered enough signatures to send the issue to referendum this year.

Town Clerk Christine Wolfe said she certified that the Wiscasset Educational Research Panel had cleared the requirement of 167 petition signatures for a referendum, which is the first step in the long, complex process for a town to secede from a regional school unit.

Wolfe said voters may decide the issue at Town Meeting in June.

With the signatures certified, group Chairman Doug Smith said the petition will be presented to the Board of Selectmen at its meeting on Feb. 21, if the matter can be added to the agenda in time.

The group had little trouble gathering enough signatures — 211 of them in less than two weeks.

Smith said he expects voters to favor starting the withdrawal process. He pointed to the results of a nonbinding referendum in November, in which residents voted 917-220 in favor of exploring withdrawal from the school district.

“The nonbinding vote turned out three times the normal number of voters in an off-year (election), and 80 percent of them voted to look at other alternatives,” Smith said.

Complaints raised by Wiscasset residents include paying what they see as an outsized share of the school district’s local taxes, being the only town in the district without school choice, a perceived decline in educational quality and a loss of local control, particularly in the school board’s decision last year to cease use of the Redskins mascot.

If a majority of voters favor withdrawing, local officials must appoint a committee of four people from Wiscasset: a municipal officer, a member of the general public, a representative of the Wiscasset Educational Research Panel and a school district board member.

The committee would have 90 days to negotiate a withdrawal agreement with RSU 12, addressing education, transportation, administration, financial commitments, union contracts, division of property and other issues.

If the plan is certified by the education commissioner as complying with state law, there would be a second municipal election in which two-thirds of the voters must approve the plan.

Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Susan McMillan can be contacted at 621-5645 or at:

smcmillan@mainetoday.com