CARIBOU, Maine — Rural residents who wish to secede from Caribou to create Maine’s newest town, Lyndon, lauded the plan at a public hearing Thursday, and declared they’re fed up with taxes they say are unfairly levied upon them.
“We commend the leadership of Caribou,” said Paul Camping, spokesperson for the Caribou Secession Committee. “But we can’t allow you to lead us to the poor house or, worse yet, into bankruptcy or force us into a situation in which we lose our homes.”
At the start of the hearing, Camping presented Caribou officials with the 54-page report outlining details of the secession plan, including economic effects of the proposed new town of Lyndon and Caribou from which it would split.
Camping called it literally a life-or-death issue.
“Rural Caribou is a community on life support,” Camping said. “We are struggling to survive under the current level of taxation you impose on us [and] your one-size-fits-all government does not work for us.”
That “unfair taxation,” he said, would not exist in Lyndon, a point echoed by his fellow secessionists.
The debate on secession in Caribou is a microcosm of a larger debate across Maine regarding the tax burden on property owners, especially in service center communities with large overheads and municipal budgets.
“Let’s get right to the crux of what is wrong with Caribou,” resident Wilfred Martin said. “This city [budget] is heavily weighted with high-price employees and it is the private sector that pays all the bills.”
Any private sector job in Caribou pays far less than its municipal equivalent, Martin said.
“I say stop right now and let them secede,” he said. “This is akin to the Boston Tea Party and this is part of a new revolution that has started tonight.”
Camping said high taxes and inflated property valuations are not new problems facing rural residents, but solving them by secession is a new solution.
“This is not something we arrive at easily,” Camping said. “But it is only through secession we can reach lasting solutions to our problems that could not be reversed by a future City Council.”
Camping maintains the city’s charter gives the council too much control over expenses and residents.
“They wrote it to say, ‘We are the city of Caribou and we can do whatever we want and no one can do anything about it,’” he said.
High taxes, several residents said, actually are keeping poorer residents out of city government because anyone delinquent on property tax payments can’t legally run for Caribou public office.
“Taxes are so high in the rural parts of town, it automatically excludes good people who are unable to pay,” Camping said.
That rule, said Caribou Mayor Gary Aiken, came as direct result of the wishes of the majority of Caribou voters who approved it at a referendum vote.
“The people said they did not want people to run for council if their taxes are not paid,” Aiken said. “I believe in the democratic process and am not going to say they can’t do what they voted to do.”
Resident Vinyl Wilcox said he understood people are tired of paying high taxes, but wondered what secession would mean to residents living in what would remain Caribou.
According to Camping, 2,612 people out of Caribou’s total population of 8,189 live in the area under consideration for secession.
He said 31 percent of Caribou’s rural population lives in what would become Lyndon and pays 40 percent of all property taxes collected in Caribou while receiving less than half the services enjoyed by those living in the urban area.
“You would be taking 30 percent of our tax base out,” Wilcox said. “Will that come back on us?”
Camping said based on the secession committee’s calculations, Caribou property taxes would remain the same or go down slightly.
In Lyndon, he said, it is estimated taxes would go down by 28 percent.
Now that the succession committee has held the required public hearing, it has 12 months to make the vision of Lyndon a reality.
For the effort to continue, legislation will have to be introduced in Augusta within the next year to create the new town, according to Camping.
In looking at possible solutions other than secession, Camping said moving from a city council to a more representative ward system and town meeting format would give residents more local control.
Aiken did not agree, saying he is not confident enough candidates could be found to fill the necessary wards to govern Caribou.
“I understand why that is attractive,” he said. “But I don’t know if you’d compound the problem with a ward system.”
Aiken said moving to a town meeting format actually could work against residents by making it easier for small groups of voters with special interests to approve pet projects at town meetings.
“Some people think special interest groups can control what the city council spends money on,” Aiken said. “But if you have a special interest at a town meeting, who do you think is going to show up? Special interest groups can always control expenses in town meetings [and] that is why a city council form of government is safer.”
