PORTLAND, Maine (AP) _ The hot ballot topic in Portland, Maine, on Tuesday is a proposal that would save a tiny downtown park from development.
The referendum item would add 35 open spaces to the city's list of protected lands and make it more difficult to sell them.
The group that collected signatures for the referendum wants to block the sale of a large part of Congress Square Plaza — a half-acre public square — to a hotel owner.
The City Council voted in September to sell two-thirds of Congress Square Plaza to Rockbridge Capital for $523,640. Rockbridge plans to build a one-story event center and renovate the remaining portion as park space.