The Maine Legislative Council on Nov. 19 denied, 8-2, an appeal to advance proposed legislation that would have allowed rural residents to continue their efforts to split off from Caribou and create the new town of Lyndon.
The measure sponsored by Republican Sen. Peter Edgecomb of Caribou was intended to be the next step in the secession process, but the 10-member council made up of leadership from both parties of the Maine House and Senate refused in October to hear it this session.
Edgecomb’s appeal of that decision was defeated last week as lawmakers determined the request did not qualify as emergency legislation.
By law the second year of a legislative session is limited “to budgetary matters, the governor’s legislation [and] legislation of an emergency nature approved by the Legislative Council …”
A message left late Thursday afternoon for Edgecomb was not immediately returned.
“It’s important to note that the bill did not fail because of the subject matter,” Caribou secession committee spokesman Paul Camping said in a Nov. 19 email. “It failed because the [legislative] council determined the request did not qualify as an emergency.”
Camping said the secession committee and the proposed legislation will be back at the start of the 128th legislative session in 2017 and that the legislative council was wrong in denying the appeal on Thursday.
“The Caribou secession committee will resubmit our bill request at the first regular session of the 128th [session] when there are no such restrictions,” he said. “We believe that the council erred in not accepting our bill request and in doing so infringed our [constitutional] right to alter our government.”
In March, members of the secession committee submitted their petition to the town to leave Caribou and take 80 percent of its landmass with them.
At a June public hearing, Camping’s committee presented Caribou officials with a 54-page report outlining details of the secession plan, including the anticipated economic effects of the proposed split on the new town of Lyndon and what would remain of Caribou.
At the heart of the secession effort, Camping has said, is what he and his committee say is an unfair tax burden placed on rural residents to support a bloated municipal budget.
Camping said Thursday that the secession committee will now take time to regroup.
“We will be meeting in the coming weeks to consider our options and chart our course to next November,” he said. “While this delay is disappointing and unfortunate, the [secession] committee is dedicated and committed to seeing this through to the very end.”
