The town of Easton could be the first Aroostook County community to ban local retail marijuana businesses, according to town manager Jim Gardner.
On Tuesday, Nov. 7, voters in Easton will be asked to decide the fate of two ordinance proposals: one that would prohibit retail marijuana operations within the town and one that would establish a school budget advisory committee.
In this off-year election, the two items mean that Easton’s approximately 1,300 residents are “getting ready for a pretty huge vote,” Gardner said.
Numerous other northern Maine communities have enacted short-term moratoriums on retail marijuana businesses, pending the outcome of legislative changes to last year’s voter-backed legalization law. But Easton would be the first community in Aroostook County to approve a prohibition on retail marijuana businesses, Gardner said.
Since approximately 75 percent of Easton voters opposed legalizing recreational marijuana last November, “the Board of Selectmen decided to go that route and put an ordinance up for a vote,” Gardner said.
While no one has proposed setting up a retail marijuana business in Easton, the selectmen thought that a prohibition ordinance would reflect the thinking of a majority of the community, Gardner said.
“The residents didn’t even want to enact the new law, so with that in mind why would we want marijuana establishments in our community,” he said, describing the board’s sentiment.
At a public hearing on the ordinance, some residents expressed concern that the town would be “taking away their rights to have retail marijuana,” Gardner said.
But he emphasized that municipal ordinances can only prohibit marijuana businesses, not personal use. “It doesn’t affect individuals other than those that want to establish a facility or social club.”
The measure is based on a model ordinance drafted with the help of the Maine Municipal Association and is similar to prohibition ordinances that were adopted in downstate communities, Gardner said.
According to the Maine Municipal Association, approximately 60 Maine municipalities have enacted marijuana moratoriums and more than 20 have adopted prohibition ordinances.
Gardner added that the proposed Easton ordinance also includes provisions for local citizens who might wish to change it in the future.
If passed the ordinance takes effect immediately and stays in effect until it is amended or repealed.
“It doesn’t preclude anybody coming along down the road from putting together a petition to repeal the ordinance,” Gardner said.
The other ordinance to be voted on Tuesday was proposed by a group of citizens who want to establish a school budget advisory committee, and is aimed at bringing more input to the annual school financing process, the town manager said.
Many Maine communities are struggling with the balancing act of local school funding and property taxes and “Easton is no different,” Gardner said.
But Easton is unique in some ways. Home to the Huber Engineered Woods and McCain Foods factories that cover some 80 percent of the municipal budget, Easton has a single community school district that receives one of the lowest funding allocations from the state government due to its large local contributions, with small class-sizes, all-day kindergarten and one-to-one laptops.
Easton’s mill rate has stayed flat for four years and is also on the lower end — $17.4 per $1,000 of property value — although everyone’s property taxes increased significantly last year under a 2015 state-order property tax revaluation.
With tax concerns as the backdrop, Gardner said that a school budget committee housed under the town would help give Easton taxpayers another way to contribute ideas.
The 15-person committee would be advisory only, without any decision-making authority, and would review and make suggestions on the school district’s annual budget before it heads to voters at the annual town meeting.
“What this budget committee does is bring in new ideas,” Gardner said, adding that the town has a similar advisory committee for the town’s portion of the overall budget.
“I think it’s a great thing. Sometimes as a town manager and board of selectmen you get into doing your budget year after year. Sometimes you try to think outside the box but you don’t always.”
