RUMFORD — By a vote of 3-2 Tuesday night, the Board of Selectmen denied a citizen petition requesting a special town meeting for a moratorium on the sale of the town’s water.

Twenty citizens gathered in Rumford Falls Auditorium, with several supporting the moratorium.

The Rumford Water District trustees voted Jan. 4 to begin negotiations with Poland Spring Water Co. about drawing water from the Ellis River watershed.

Board Chairman Jeff Sterling and Selectmen Peter Chase and Chris Brennick voted to deny the petition, while Selectmen Mark Belanger and Jim Windover favored it.

The recommendation to deny was submitted in a four-page legal opinion to the town by Kendall A. Ricker of Boothby Perry LLC of Turner.

Sterling read the entire report, which concluded that enacting a moratorium that the town doesn’t have the power to enforce could expose the town to litigation.

Brennick added, “The legal advice is that we don’t have the authority to tell the Water District what they can do.”

Belanger said he believes the people should have a say in this issue. But he expressed a concern that if the petition were accepted, people could be voting for a moratorium that would not be binding.

“I wouldn’t want to mislead the people that we were going to vote for a moratorium when in fact it really wasn’t a moratorium,” he said.

Windover said the vote would at least send a message to the Water District.

Regarding any subsequent petition, Town Manager John Madigan said the town charter stipulates that when 25 or more qualified voters are of the opinion that a critical circumstance exists, “I think you’ve got to start there and that has to be in whatever you follow it up with (for a petition).”

Len Greaney of the Western Maine Water Alliance, who organized the petition, said he would submit another petition, perhaps adding advised wording that a critical circumstance exists, with wording about land use.

That could be presented to the Board of Selectmen at its next meeting Jan. 19.

bfarrin@sunmediagroup.net