FREEPORT – The Freeport Withdrawal Committee and the committee representing Regional School Unit 5 met Monday morning at the Town Hall with a facilitator who will try to help the two sides resolve their differences as they negotiate an agreement for Freeport to leave RSU 5.

John Alfano, a professional mediator from Biddeford, talked briefly with the Withdrawal Committee and the RSU 5 Working Group, and then each committee went into executive session. The committees will split the cost of Alfano’s fee, which is $165 an hour, according to Peter Murray, Withdrawal Committee chairman.

Murray said that little progress was made Monday morning as Alfano spoke with both committees separately.

“We spent the morning working hard and getting nowhere,” Murray said.

The Withdrawal Committee and the Working Group were to meet again on Wednesday, June 11, at Freeport High, but that has been postponed. The Withdrawal Committee meets every Thursday at the school, at 6:30 p.m.

The Withdrawal Committee and the Working Group, comprising school board members from Durham and Pownal, are negotiating for Freeport to withdraw from RSU 5. The two committees agreed to use a facilitator to help them come to agreement as to whether Freeport High needs to commit 10 years to Durham and Pownal students, as well as financial considerations.

The Working Group insists that Freeport High must be the school of guaranteed acceptance, while the Withdrawal Committee says the school does not have the capacity to make that guarantee.

“They won’t budge on the school of record,” Murray said of the Working Group. “We’ve tried ways of creative thinking. It’s a real stalemate. We’re essentially being held hostage here.”

Michelle Ritcheson, chairwoman of the Working Group, did not return a call for comment by the Tri-Town Weekly’s deadline Monday.

The Maine Department of Education has advised the two groups that it needs a written agreement on withdrawal by mid-July, in order to respond in time for a November withdrawal vote in Freeport. A department spokeswoman said that the facilitator has no decision authority.

Alfano facilitated negotiations in which Saco and Dayton reached an accord to leave RSU 23. He also was hired to provide a report for the Westbrook School Department when controversy erupted following a student-athlete drinking incident last fall.

“My style is to use joint meetings whenever possible,” Alfano said. “I’ll offer proposals to get the mediation moving.”

Alfano said he has reviewed the school-of-record issue. Financial topics such how to allocate debt service, capital improvement projects and equipment such as buses, trucks and vans also could be issues, he said.

Kelly Wentworth, the RSU 5 finance director, pointed out that RSU 5 has not taken on any debt since it was formed in 2009.

John Alfano