To the editor:
As a longtime resident of Aroostook County, I was very disappointed to see that the bill to repeal school consolidation, LD 977, was narrowly defeated in the House of Representatives recently. Anyone who lives in Aroostook County or for that matter, in rural Maine, appreciates what a mess the entire school consolidation law has been since its inception in the dark of night by politicians in Augusta several years ago.
While it is unfortunate for Aroostook County and for all of rural Maine that the bill to repeal school consolidation did not pass, it is extremely troubling that Rep. Patricia Sutherland voted against the bill. Rep. Sutherland, forgetting who she represents, was the only representative in the Aroostook County legislative delegation not to vote in favor of repeal.
Rep. Sutherland should look at a map. Apparently, she has now been in Augusta so long as to forget her roots and, more importantly, her constituency. It is simply baffling that she would support a law that is so detrimental to our small schools and, indeed, to our way of life in Aroostook County.
This is not the first time that Rep. Sutherland has supported school consolidation. In 2006, she voted in favor of the bill. There was significant backlash against the bill from the outset, especially in Aroostook County. When Rep. Sutherland ran for office in 2008, she campaigned in support of some type of repeal of the school consolidation bill. However, after being elected as the Chair of the Education Committee, Rep. Sutherland has done an about face and voted against repeal of consolidation earlier this week.
Politicians in Augusta, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron, and advocates of school consolidation touted its benefits to our children, as well as significant cost savings when the law was initially enacted. As a member of the Central Aroostook District Schools Regional Planning Committee, I can say with a straight face that our children would suffer as a result of consolidation, and the costs of consolidation would be enormous (consolidation would have cost the residents of Easton an additional $500,000.00 in the first two years alone). Other schools and districts, after sitting down and actually crunching the numbers, came to the same conclusions: consolidation is a tremendous additional cost, and there are no savings.
Aroostook County, as well as much of rural Maine, is suffering financially. Consolidation, ultimately, will do nothing but take money from rural schools and benefit the larger, richer schools in the southern half of the state. I urge Rep. Sutherland’s constituents to remind her where she lives, who she represents, as well as the fact that people in the County will not tolerate politicians who say one thing to get elected, only to turn their back on their constituency once elected.
Perhaps Rep. Sutherland, who now argues that repealing school consolidation would present “a legal quagmire”, should have thought of that before supporting consolidation in the first place. By failing to take a stand and support her constituency, Rep. Sutherland is in effect “passing the buck” and sending the bill out to the public for a vote this fall. Does she understand and appreciate that consolidation has been a complete failure in Aroostook County? Obviously, she is not representing the people of her district, and those people should let her know both now and at the next election.
Easton
