Letters to the Editor

Central Hall funding model unfair to taxpayers

To the Editor:
    Dover’s Central Hall/White Elephant is achieving “Jumbo” proportions. Nearly one and a half million dollars of other people’s money (grants) have been procured to convert and preserve the former town offices.
    Central Hall seems to hold a sentimental value for a handful of Dover-Foxcroft residents — folks who, along with the town’s historical society, have been unable to independently raise the necessary building restoration funds. That’s when other interests stepped in and the building transformation began.

    The need for money took on a new dimension. And here we are, more than a million dollars already spent and the project continues to require an additional $600,000 worth of grants to complete.
    There seems to be a sense of euphoria at what one Dover selectperson views as a cloud with a silver (or is it gold?) lining. The Jan. 28 edition of this paper quotes Vice-Chair Cindy Cyr as suggesting, “…We should stop and applaud, that’s wonderful.” Applaud for what? Pick one: a) procuring and spending a huge sum of money; b) developing new office space for a handful of nonprofit agencies; c) succumbing to a golden-tongued sales pitch; or d) committing all Dover taxpayers to an additional tax burden to support an enterprise for which general taxation was never intended? Actually, perhaps all of the above, a) through d), apply.
    In the beginning, the preservation of Central Hall seemed like a laudable undertaking, but when the concept for the building expanded, so too did the funding requirements. No longer would a town building be serving just town residents. The “Senior Center” has morphed the project into a facility that will be serving a regional constituency.
    According to the Oct. 15, 2012, business plan, Dover taxpayers will be on the “financial hook” to provide an annual ongoing tax-supported “contribution” to the new regional entity. Has anyone considered who, beyond a limited number of “seniors” and those who service them, will be the true beneficiaries of the town’s tax-driven largesse?
    When the Central Hall project finally opens the doors it will do so bathed in red ink and Dover residents will be “expected” to support an ongoing and ever-growing deficit. Strangely, no business-savvy entrepreneur would open a new business, all the while expecting taxpayer funding to support it; yet that seems to be exactly what an “enterprising” few expect town residents to do.
    Surely we haven’t elected selectmen who disregard their fiduciary guardianship of the town treasury and its expenditures, or have we? Are we and they being deceived into thinking that town taxation should be used to further a regional enterprise whose charter includes serving residents of noncontributing neighboring towns?
    To even consider drawing on Dover’s limited tax revenues in order to benefit nonresidents is clearly an abuse of the power to tax and of the citizens expected to annually fund town services.
    One can only hope the Central Hall project and its funding isn’t an attempt by a zealous few to “redistribute the wealth.” Continued support of Central Hall repurposing and operation through local taxation will, most assuredly, further burden the town’s taxpayers and reduce the ability of the town to service its own critical needs and essential services.

Don Benjamin
Dover-Foxcroft

Poor working, retired people are being swindled

To the Editor:
    Last week Governor LePage wrote an article here entitled “Local Government Has Failed at Tax Reform.” In it he chides the local towns for their failure to cut their taxes. The state, according to him, is doing its part – the state is well under the LD1 cap, but a good number of the towns are not under the cap (Dover-Foxcroft is under the cap). In his letter he says “We must focus on tax relief for Mainers, not welfare for local government.” (Note his favorite dirty word “welfare.” I suppose those of us who worked all of our lives and are now living on our “government-run Social Security and government-run health care” are also living on welfare!) He also notes that “Local officials are concerned with local budgets in cities and towns. We (the Governor) are concerned for the Mainers who live in those cities and towns.” – as if local officials are not concerned with the Mainers who live in those cities and towns!
    Looking just a little bit under this clever, but deceitful, missive of the governor’s, what he is really after is nothing but eliminating income tax for his friends. He fails to mention that “the Mainers who live in those cities and towns will pay more in increased sales and other taxes than they ‘get back’ in reduced income taxes. His tax plan replaces the only (very mildly) progressive tax with regressive taxes that help his rich friends, and hurt almost all working and retired people – and that includes almost all of us in Piscataquis County.
    Adam Smith, one of my Libertarian heroes, wrote in 1776 that “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government in proportion to their respective abilities, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.” Over 100 years ago, we in this country had a lengthy debate about what that means. We decided that this means that “proportion to their respective abilities” means progressive taxes.
    As a result, during the golden heyday of the middle class, the 1950s under the Republican Dwight Eisenhower, the top income tax rate was 90 percent. Nobody starved, we all got richer – including the upper one percent. No rich people left the country. The governor thinks that all of us have forgotten that. So he proposes tax reform that eliminates the little progressivity in taxes that we do have.
    Towns as “welfare’ queens? I would have a little sympathy if the state were paying its promised share of the bills. One of the commitments the state made under the LD1 discussions was that, in return for towns giving up the right to levy local taxes, the state would pay 5 percent in revenue sharing to the towns. Now the state pays only about 2 percent. This equates to a couple of extra mills on the tax rate to the citizens of Dover-Foxcroft (if you have a $100,000 house – that’s about $200 that the state is already cheating us out of). Another part of the LD1 tradeoffs was the commitment by the state to pick up 55 percent of school funding. Right now it is less than 45 percent. That’s another 2 mills on your tax bill. Just these two examples cost the average property tax payer about $400 extra every year on their tax bill.
    So, not only does the governor plan to shift more of the total tax burden from his rich friends to the check-out ladies at the grocery store, but he isn’t even owning up to keeping to the state’s past commitments to the Mainers who live in our towns. We poor working and retired people who make up the bulk of the population in Piscataquis County are being swindled. The only consolation we can take from this is that we were dumb enough to vote this guy in for a second term.

Chris Maas
Dover-Foxcroft