To the editor:
You know that times must really be tough in our taxing and economically declining little community, when one of its staunchest and most valuable cheerleaders doesn’t even live in Caribou. Nevertheless, this loyal city booster has vowed that she will be a frequent visitor to Caribou, which is fantastic because our local businesses desperately need her tourist trade (Please, see: “Caribou, to be or not to be”; Viewpoints, May 25, 2016.).
Potatoes as an economic driver for Caribou were already in a steady decline, when the Loring AFB closed for good in 1994. These two eventualities have sealed the irreversible and inevitable economic fate of Caribou, Maine.
Climate, geography and the cost of utilities are the three major opposing forces that make it highly unlikely that there will ever again be real prosperity in not only Caribou but also in northern Maine. These three opposing forces are Aroostook County’s triple curse — a triple whammy against real prosperity. Even if the cost of electricity were to come down dramatically in northern Maine and the price of oil were to stabilize at $25 a barrel, Caribou would still remain an unattractive location for most businesses. The transportation costs are just too high, the distances from large urban hubs are too great, and the winters are too long and too harsh for most people to endure, except for the bravest.
Nevertheless, the news isn’t all bad because a Caribou family recently sold their property, after nearly two years on the market. There was, however, one major downside to their property sale: It sold for $56,000 less than its assessed value. Their original assessment was for $339,000, but the city assessor eventually abated that assessment to a mere $306,000. The property finally sold for $250,000, which was $89,000 less than the original assessment. Their original property assessment turned out to be nearly 35 percent higher than the market value. This tragic tale is a sad symbol of the tough economic times in Caribou.
Caribou’s abnormally high property valuations have been an economic disaster for this family and for many other families in Caribou, as well as a disaster for the entire city itself. It is not uncommon to find real estate in Caribou that is assessed at 20 percent, 25 percent, or at an even higher percentage than that of the market value of that same real estate. With almost 200 residential properties for sale in Caribou, it’s a buyer’s market and, therefore the market value of real estate is driven even lower.
Caribou’s abnormally high property valuations have created the perfect feedback loop: Property owners cannot afford the high taxes, so, they want to sell their property and move, except they can’t sell their property because too many other homeowners have the same idea. This circumstance creates a real estate glut which lowers the market value even further because the supply of property for sale far exceeds the demand of buyers for these properties.
None of the well-intentioned “Kumbaya” solutions that have been proposed are going solve Caribou’s economic problems. Since the closure of Loring AFB in 1994, Caribou has been relegated to the status of a suburb of Presque Isle, where Lowes and Walmart continue to dominate the retail business scene and where Sears, K-Mart, and Staples have all but evaporated. Read the writing on the wall.
The triple whammy of climate, geography, and high-priced utilities is not going to disappear. The reality is that there are many more attractive places in the United States to locate a business other than in Caribou, Maine. Unfortunately, for Caribou, Presque Isle is the end of the line for businesses that want to locate in northern Maine: Presque Isle is the last stop before Canada.
The only thing that can possibly slow Caribou’s inevitable economic decline is for the city of Caribou to bring its property value assessments in line with the true real estate market values. The citizens of Caribou must also demand that their city government behave more fiscally responsible and live within its means. The manner in which the government of Caribou operates now only serves to hasten Caribou’s inevitable economic decline.
Our city government is literally destroying Caribou with their spendthrift ways — they are committing economic hara-Caribou (hara-kiri) – by continuously fleecing the taxpayers of Caribou because they can get away with it.
Those who live in the Secession Territory will have a choice to secede from this economic lunacy, when they get their chance to vote on secession. How much could you sell your home for, if you could sell it at all?
