HOULTON, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage told a small crowd in Houlton on Wednesday evening that Mainers could accomplish greater things and save more money if they worked together and embraced regionalization.
This was one of the sentiments that came out in the last of three town hall meetings LePage held in Aroostook County last week. Approximately 40 people attended the event in Houlton, where the governor discussed a host of topics, including energy, education, the environment and legislation and action in the State House in Augusta.
He said he felt that estate taxes were unfair to those who spent their whole lives working to leave something to their loved ones and that other high federal taxes were taking hard-earned money from the pocketbooks of Mainers.
He also praised programs that he said were working for Mainers that “you never hear about because they don’t get printed in the newspapers.”
“The only thing you read about in the newspaper is how bad I am,” he told the crowd to laughter.
For instance, he referred to welfare benefit recipients who volunteered to trade in their old benefit cards for new electronic ones with photo IDs.
He said the change was intended to stop abuse of the system and prevent the cards from being traded, sold or stolen, most likely to buy illegal drugs.
Putting photographs on the cards has cut down on the problem, he said.
“Since October 2015, we have not seen a drug bust where an EBT card was found with a picture on it,” he told the crowd.
The governor also said he felt that local communities and the state could save more money through regionalization, such as by sharing equipment or combining schools, but residents tended to be reluctant because they wanted to keep their separate identity.
There were questions from the audience about the planned closing of a Maine Department of Health and Human Services office in Fort Kent, and whether any other Aroostook County offices would be closed. LePage said that he might be looking to close other offices around the state as technology allows more employees to work from anywhere.
He did not specify any locations.
