NEW LONDON — A decision to have voters reconsider two items from Town Meeting means no votes taken during the session earlier this month are valid until the outstanding articles are reconsidered.

Making the matter more complicated is a procedural error that could leave the results of the entire meeting in limbo.

“As we sit here tonight, we do not have a budget. Any of those articles are not yet finalized because the meeting is still open,” Town Administrator Kim Hallquist said at a Selectboard meeting last week.

At Town Meeting on March 12, warrant article 3, a plan to borrow a nearly $1 million to buy a property and continue planning work for a new police station, failed to garner the necessary 60% supermajority to pass.

Then voters amended and approved article 9 to fund debt service for capital projects. The proposal was directly linked to the bond for the police station planning that voters had just rejected.

After the two votes, residents successfully motioned to reconsider both items at a future meeting.

(Hallquist, a town hall veteran, said a reconsideration motion may have never happened before in New London and certainly had not occurred in recent years.)

Now voters will be asked to take up the items again — though a meeting date has not been set — “from the beginning as if the debate never happened,” Town Moderator W. Michael Todd said at the March 20 Selectboard meeting.

Residents in favor of proposed article 3 were not yet ready to let go of the years-long police station project. Selectboard Chairwoman Bebe Casey said she hopes to see conversation and community forums in town ahead of the next vote to “try to bring everybody together on how we can move forward with a new police station which I believe everybody in this town really wants to see happen."

Because of the motions to reconsider, the New London Town Meeting is still technically “open,” so nothing that was voted on at the meeting is in effect, including the town’s budget, Hallquist said.

After the reconsideration meeting, New London staff can submit the approved budget, which allocated $1.9 million for the general fund and additional appropriations for other funds, to the state Department of Revenue Administration.

New London follows a traditional fiscal year, so the approved budget should go into effect July 1.

The Selectboard and town staff hope to have the entire issue resolved before the end of May or sometime in June at the latest, Hallquist said Tuesday. She said it seems “premature” to consider that the town could be without an approved 2026 budget come July 1 and she does not know what would happen in that case.

A procedural error makes the situation even more complex. Because a time, date and location for the reconsideration hearing was not set during Town Meeting as is required by state law, New London needs to hold a third meeting at least 21 days after the reconsideration meeting to “ratify” the votes, Hallquist said.

At that time, residents will be voting to accept that the error happened and approve the results of the reconsideration meeting. A yes vote says “yes, we’re all aware of what happened, we feel like we had enough notice (and) we participated to the extent we wanted to,” Hallquist said.

If the town votes against ratifying the meetings and amending the error, “then I suppose we don’t have a budget, our town meeting will not be ratified. That will be a huge problem.”

The issue came to light the night of Town Meeting, after a resident went home, read the state statute and reached out to the town clerk, Hallquist said in a Tuesday interview.

At the March 20 meeting, the board and town staff said they were looking to hold the meeting during the first two weeks in May, but moderator Todd said picking a venue and acquiring the necessary equipment is a complicated process. Hallquist said they may make a decision Wednesday morning.

Up for reconsideration by voters are Town Meeting articles 3 and 9.

Article 3 asks to acquire $955,000 in bonds or notes for “continuing the investigation, planning and design of a new police facility” including buying an undeveloped property on Seamans Road behind Colby Sawyer College.

At Town Meeting, opponents argued that the proposed property is too far from downtown New London, residents do not have enough information about current plans and that there are ways to build a better and less expensive station.

Supporters pushed back on many of these points, including that a new police station could be rebuilt on the same property as the current station. They also argued that delaying the long-time project for another year will increase the cost.

Article 9 raises $628,000 to cover the town’s long term debt, including $23,875 for interest on the police station project.

Clare Shanahan can be reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.