Grass is not always greener
To the editor:
I am writing to about my concerns of the drastic action being proposed by members of our community. The separation of part of the community into a separate town will cause devastating harm and pain to the citizens of our city.
If this were to happen, I see only discord occurring to all of those who live here. The problem of establishing another town administration with separate voting, council members, elections that surely will bring great division amongst the populace. I believe these frustrated citizens have failed to understand the many intricate workings of city government drive this action. This will not benefit our city.
The administration, its counselors, the city manager, department heads, and fellow employees have difficult and important work to do on behalf of our community. They struggle to maintain services equally to all of us who reside here. These separatists should let them do their jobs and decease this action and proceed to work together to better our city.
I realize that there are problems that need fixing but attempting to destroy what we now enjoy is not the way to accomplish this. The only way to correct any situation is to cooperate in a calm and coherent manner, keeping one’s emotions under control.
The unspoken elephant in the room, so to speak, is the tremendous burden the school system puts on the city. The city is overrun with many burdensome regulations created by both the state and federal government, which in turn puts a heavy tax load on both homeowners and business owners. This problem needs to be addressed by the citizenry in an open and frank discussion, striving to solve any perceived problems. Briefly, the funding has to come from taxpayers, and if the federal government reduces funding and the state does likewise, the citizens have to pay more. However, where does the state and federal money come from? Our tax dollars. You see everybody pays one way or another.
I attended the city council meeting this evening (6-11-15) and learned that there is much misunderstanding about the secession movement. In addition, the populace lacks knowledge of how city government functions on many levels. However, the audience’s emotions were in an elevated state so not very much progress was being made because no one had time to preview the petition before the meeting. Time will be needed for the citizens of Caribou to study the proposal and educate themselves in the pros and cons in order to make a calm, informed decision, which I’m sure they will reject soundly. Even after studying this secession proposal, one may be left with many unanswered questions if this were to take place. Will our taxes go down? Who will plow the snow in the winter? Who will maintain the roads? Who will police Lyndon? How will it affect your children’s education? These are just a few of the question that need answers, before initiating such a radical change to our city.
The proponents of this movement are failing to realize that the same problems of city government occur in smaller town administrations also. The apathy of citizen participation or the lack of it in city government is the same in a town government. People attend town or city meetings when it directly affects them negatively or benefits them. The citizens in every community respond to what influences them personally in most situations and use the excuse, I am too busy tonight, or I do not have the time because I have more important things to do.
I offer an example of the lack of involvement in city affairs: After 9/11, people flocked to their churches for comfort and prayer. Churches were near capacity for several weeks, however, slowly church attendance went down in participation and reverted to its former numbers. Since that time, even more people have shrunk away, and church attendance has dwindled even more.
Therefore, before you make any decision about secession. I urge the reader to think about it long and hard, because the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.
Ernest A. Murphy
Caribou
Not all rural residents are treated as second class citizens
To the editor:
Last Thursday evening I attended the public hearing with the Secession Committee and the Caribou City Council. There was a good turnout of about 325 people. While I felt that maybe some of their points had merit, I took vehement exception to the statement “We have been relegated to second class citizens who now, apparently, have become more trouble than we are worth.” What? I have been a “country bumpkin” now for almost 70 years, and not once, not ever have I gotten the feeling that the city regarded me or my family as second class citizens. In fact, I was insulted by that remark, as I am sure other people living in the rural areas were as well.
I have owned and operated a small business “out in the country” for 28 years and have always felt that I have had an excellent rapport with the city of Caribou. I don’t expect to have sidewalks and street lights. Can you imagine what your taxes would look like if we did? But I do get all the other services offered by the city. I want the Caribou Highway Department to continue to maintain the roads and I want the Caribou Police and Fire and Ambulance to be the ones to respond should I ever need them. They are second to none.
Our forefathers fought and paid with their lives for our freedom and our democratic way of government. Democracy rules, and this is true in Caribou. If the majority of the people want certain services and are willing to pay for them, then they should expect to get them.
The Council took a survey of the services desired by the voters and also whether or not they wanted to secede from Caribou. The results showed that they do want services and they don’t want to secede, and this is true within the city limits as well as within the secession territory.
Now, notice I said “voters,” because that is the group who makes the decisions on these issues. It doesn’t matter whether you have a town or city form of government. It still comes down to the voters. Therein lies the problem. Instead of pitting brother against brother and neighbor against neighbor … how about the very people who are trying to make changes run for Council or get on the planning board, or participate in the activities of the city that focuses on the betterment of the city instead of trying to pull the city apart? (And I apologize to the Secession Committee members if I was too vocal about that point when speaking with you after the meeting.)
With approximately 5,000-plus voters in this town, only 211 came out to vote for an $18-plus million school budget! And only a fraction make the effort to come out and vote at regular elections.
The Secession Committee has often accused the Council of catering to special interest groups. They are absolutely correct. They do cater to one group and that group is called The Voters.
I had a conversation a while back with a fairly well known supporter of the secession movement, and we were talking about democracy and majority rule. His comment to me was that perhaps Caribou should be more like Russia where the minority is actually the majority. Wow!
Paul Theriault
Caribou
