Comments
IamSauerKraut OP t1_j6g77du wrote
They have a decision to make.
hike_me t1_j6dyw6k wrote
More small towns in Maine should be disincorporated and run at the county level or merged with other municipalities. At some point excessive local control is inefficient and duplicative
Existing_Bat1939 t1_j6e3t42 wrote
Maine's counties don't have the administrative capacity to run things at that level; what happens in reality is that the state takes over. So far as municipal consolidation goes, even Paul LePage recognized that our many small towns are a key component of our high tax burden, but suggesting consolidations would be met with about the same reaction as putting a big sign in Kittery that read, "Eat Massachusetts Lobster! "
IamSauerKraut OP t1_j6e1gzs wrote
>At some point excessive local control is inefficient and duplicative
Not sure how local control is duplicative. Removing local control takes away the voice of the taxpayer/voter. And, as we have seen with public schools, the combining of entities has often resulted in less than ideal "efficiencies."
hike_me t1_j6e6wo9 wrote
I live on MDI. They partially resisted school consolidation and created an AOS. Each town has a school board and budget. Sharing teachers between schools in the AOS is a pain because they are all employees of the individual towns. Multiple towns had their own police chief and fire chief, which is finally merging. Separate code enforcement and planning. There really is no need for all this duplication of effort and services in a small geographic area.
Canada went through with a municipal amalgamation process that was successful
IamSauerKraut OP t1_j6ef6tm wrote
MDI is likely a unique situation. Maine already has a countywide police force in its counties but even that is insufficient when you have towns/cities beyond a certain size. A significant number of towns have long relied solely on county deputies for law enforcement, but some towns have found that insufficient given the issues at the local level.
hike_me t1_j6f6sr9 wrote
New England, including Maine has very weak counties. Outside of New England, the county is the default form of government. Areas can incorporate as a city and have their own police, etc but the default is to run everything at the county level.
IamSauerKraut OP t1_j6g8ih9 wrote
>Outside of New England, the county is the default form of government.
Not sure this is true.
hike_me t1_j6gaxyh wrote
In most states outside New England town government isn’t even really a thing (if town government exists it is extremely limited in power compared to the county). “Towns” are often unincorporated settlements and cities are the incorporated municipalities. In some cases you’ll even have enclaves of unincorporated areas in the middle of huge cities that refused to be annexed and continue to be administered at the county level (for example, Google map Houston and look at the border — that irregular shape is the result of annexing densely settled unincorporated areas) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_town
Houston https://maps.app.goo.gl/MkksCHaSkHagEwyv7?g_st=ic
Harris County, where Houston is located, has a bunch of unincorporated communities: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Harris_County_Texas_incorporated_and_unincorporated_areas_Houston_highlighted.svg
Check out how much of Los Angeles County (maybe the most populated county in the US?) is unincorporated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Los_Angeles_County,_California
siebzy t1_j6eb9qz wrote
Is it not duplicative for both Dennysville and the County to spend money maintaining law enforcement infrastructure (dispatch, admin, etc) to cover overlapping areas? Is it not duplicative for the town to have its own code enforcement officer when the county already has the capacity to take that over?
This argument in favor of local control ignores obvious efficiencies of scale, and makes "taxpayer control" more of an issue than "crushing property tax bills".
IamSauerKraut OP t1_j6efxlc wrote
>This argument in favor of local control ignores obvious efficiencies of scale
An argument often made by failed politicians and now-unemployed corporate managers.
btw, does Dennysville have its own police department? oh. well, so much for all that verbiage.
siebzy t1_j6es612 wrote
Which failed politicians. Which unemployed corporate managers.
If you've got them, name names. Otherwise you're just whining about change like your average Abe Simpson.
IamSauerKraut OP t1_j6g71dv wrote
>does Dennysville have its own police department? oh. well, so much for all that verbiage.
Avoiding a pertinent question?
siebzy t1_j6hqhu1 wrote
How does it benefit the Dennysville resident to pay for a town office that's only open one afternoon a week? They have to go to Pembroke most of the time anyway. Why not share the costs between all residents of those towns equally and provide better service?
IamSauerKraut OP t1_j6hxtca wrote
No guarantee that sharing costs will provide better service.
As for the town office, if it is only open one day a week then that is probably done to reduce costs (no lights on; no high electric bill). As best as I can determine, there is no mortgage on the building so keeping it closed 6 days a week, if that is what they do, reduces the cost to townspeople.
BracedRhombus t1_j6f2bti wrote
There is no local law enforcement or dispatch, either the County or the State provides it.
siebzy t1_j6g2ql2 wrote
Then what does the town government do that couldn't be done at the county or state level, cheaper?
Existing_Bat1939 t1_j6im4jo wrote
If you think Washington County has the capacity to take over code enforcement you must never have been there. In reality land use regulation would fall to a state agency named LURC, and trust me, no one likes LURC. There would be no "code enforcement" because Maine lacks a statewide building code so without a municipal government there would be no code to enforce.
We're discussing a municipality that runs on the Town Meeting/ Selectmen form of government, which is essentially pure Athenian democracy (including public debate of ordinances and the town budget by the citizenry in open meeting) and they elect a handful of people to sign checks.
hurriedfashion t1_j6fj41b wrote
Been a steady stream of shrinking and very small towns doing this the last several years. Some of the things these very small towns are asked to do for themselves really, really don't make sense given their populations.
Themell t1_j6ewetx wrote
I’ve met several people who have recently left this town to take professional jobs in Portland. I
tobascodagama t1_j6j0ukx wrote
Seems to me a lot of these smaller communities would be well served by merging to pool resources
FriarRoads t1_j6eomzf wrote
Dennysville is surrounded by Unorganized Territories (UTs) and residents see first hand the benefits of being state funded.
What good is local control if you have no money to do anything?