Advisory referendum enables UT residents to weigh in on Atkinson deorganization

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

GREENVILLE — With the town of Atkinson in the midst of the deorganization process, which if successful would change the community from a municipality to an unorganized territory (UT) falling under the jurisdiction of Piscataquis County, over 650 advisory referendum absentee ballots have been mailed by the county to registered voters in the UTs across the region. The ballot asks if these residents support the deorganization of the town of Atkinson — either yes or no — and the referendum results will be presented to the Maine Legislature should the disbandment effort proceed that far.

The county held two public hearings on the advisory referendum for UT residents, in Greenville and Milo on consecutive evenings, with the first being held for UT residents from the Moosehead Lake region on July 12 at the Greenville Town Office with about two dozen in attendance.

County Commissioners Chair Fred Trask said the ballots, which are due to be mailed back to the county by Aug. 1, will “make an indication to the state Legislature how the people in the UTs feel about Atkinson deorganization.” He added, “People in the UTs usually don’t have a voice.”

Maine UT Fiscal Administrator Marcia McInnis explained the municipal deorganization process is comprised of three steps, with the first phase already completed. Atkinson residents have approved the pursuit of deorganization, elected a local committee and submitted written notification to the Legislature and to her.

“Phase two is the phase we’re in and it’s probably the phase that involves the most work,” McInnis said. She said a deorganization procedure has been written and reviewed by a state commission. On July 19 Atkinson citizens were scheduled to vote on the deorganization procedure via a special town meeting.

“They will vote whether they accept the procedure or they have the opportunity to amend it,” she said. Should the plan be voted down — on July 19 or a short time later post-amendments — then the deorganization process would end.

McInnis said the advisory referendum for UT voters is also a part of the second phase. “It does not enhance or prevent the community of Atkinson deorganizing, it is a way of expressing how the voters of the UTs feel to the Legislature and the secretary of state,” she said.

The Legislature, secretary of state and McInnis would receive the results from both Atkinson and the UT voters to finish the phase two. After a state commission reviews the deorganization plan, the document would then be voted on by the Maine House and Senate. These legislators will make their decision on “what’s best for the region and what’s best for Maine,” McInnis said.

“If the Legislature approves the deorganization it comes back to Atkinson for one more vote because it’s such a terrific change to the government of Atkinson,” she said. “They lose their corporate powers, they can’t enter into agreements or contracts.”

Interim County Manager Tom Lizotte said this final vote needs to pass by a two-thirds majority. When asked, Lizotte said Atkinson had 326 residents in the 2010 census but estimates have this number today being closer to 300. The town has about 230 registered voters.

“This is the largest community that we know of that is disorganizing,” McInnis said.

The fiscal administrator said the last vote made by Atkinson residents — if the deorganization gets that far — could be part of the gubernatorial ballot in November 2018. If approved then the community would join the county UTs at the start of the next fiscal year in the summer of 2019.

“This is the fourth deorganization attempt by Atkinson and it’s never made it all the way through,” McInnis said, saying very few deorganization efforts have come to fruition. The first attempt in 1997 failed at the polls, and residents approved deorganization in 2002 and 2004 only to have the plan rejected by the Legislature.

County Commissioner, and former state representative, Jim Annis said one Atkinson deorganization procedure was approved in the House but fell one vote shy of passing in the Senate.

Lizotte said the Legislature has not favored the deorganization of communities with several hundred residents. He said earlier in the year a plan for the central Aroostook County town of Oxbow Plantation — with about 50 residents — was approved while the deorganization attempt for the 200-plus population community of Cary Plantation in southern Aroostook County was voted down in Augusta.

“If you say ‘yes’ what happens to the other 50 or so towns?,” Lizotte said.

He said the county UT budget is about $1.5 million annually, while Atkinson’s municipal budget is about $300,000 or approximately 20 percent of the $1.5 million. The interim county manager said the addition of Atkinson would raise the UT tax rate, but it is too early to say exactly how much.

“That’s always been the attraction of deorganization – the lower taxes,” Lizotte said, as a UT the costs would be lower than as a municipality.

Referencing a map included in the Atkinson deorganization procedure, Lizotte said the community is pursuing dissolution because almost half of the community’s taxable acreage is the Tree Growth Program and about 13,000 acres of these lands are in tax-exempt or reduced valuation conservation programs. “There’s very little tax base for the town to drawn on,” he said.

“It’s a very unusual situation, you have all of this land in one town,” Lizotte said.

McInnis said liabilities would remain with Atkinson, such as contamination from a salt/sand pile and a bridge on the McCorrison Road, as identified in the deorganization plan. Lizotte said the county can refuse to pay for improvements needed to bring infrastructure up to county standards.

“What we’ve tried to do is get Atkinson to discontinue some places,” Trask said, such as the McCorrison Road bridge which is not the only way in and out to some properties.

Shelley Lane, director of state schools for education in UT, said Atkinson currently has 34 K-12 students who attend school in the Milo-based SAD 41. She said educational reasons are not why the town is deorganizing but after looking at all the options “in this case Dover-Foxcroft was the decision I made.” Lane cited the lower costs across all grades as well as programming and transportation for why she opted for RSU 68/Foxcroft Academy for Atkinson pupils.

Lane said the town would need to formally withdraw from SAD 41 in order for students to no longer attend schools in that district.

“Right now we take care of about 1,000 students in the UT,” she said, with a budget of about $12 million funding education for these pupils across the state.