Back in the dim recesses of history – in the early 1990s in this case – Portland undertook a citywide property revaluation that resulted in a secession fever that spread from Peaks to Long to Cliff and Chebeague islands and back to Great Diamond and even Cushings Island before it finally ran its course. When the dust had settled and the political moment passed on the other island communities, Long Island had become Maine’s 495th town.
Portland had argued that Long Island was too under-populated a community (with a year-round population then of 170 or so) to be able to manage its own affairs successfully and really needed Portland’s help for such things as firefighting, garbage removal and emergency medical services. But this kind of big-city paternalism backfired in the legislature, which is heavily weighted to the interests of small rural towns. The legislature essentially granted Long Islanders the right of self-determination, leaving their future up to the community’s registered voters in a referendum where independence won by a 6-1 margin.
The following year Peaks and Great Diamond Island had the secession door slammed in their faces after Portland’s politicians developed a much savvier “line” in the legislature. The city became more forthcoming about its reliance on the islands’ high value waterfront property to maintain its decaying tax base – without which, the city warned, it would be back in Augusta demanding that agencies provide more subsidies for Portland’s poor and homeless and the city’s deteriorating schools. Maine legislators had no stomach for increasing state aid to Portland and passed a bill requiring future secession questions to be decided by a vote of both communities – in the case of Casco Bay the tens of thousands of Portland voters vs. a few hundred or a thousand island votes.
Now that new revaluations have been completed in Portland and Cumberland, it should be no surprise that island secession talk is again rampant. Secession is also a hot topic on Islesboro in Penobscot Bay, where residents at last year’s town meeting voted to explore seceding from Waldo County and joining Knox County, spurring Rep. Barbara Merrill to submit an Islesboro secession bill to the legislature this session.
In one sense all the secession talk from Casco to Penobscot Bay is just another manifestation of the broad based tax revolt that has commanded center stage in Maine politics for the past two years. We are one of the top two most heavily taxed states in the country, while our average incomes are in the lowest quarter of the nation’s 50 states. To say our present circumstances are unsustainable is the kind of soothing understatement that belies the fact that we are teetering like the Tower of Pisa and need to act decisively.
But something new under the sun has recently come to our attention. Chebeague islanders, who two years ago rallied Augusta’s attention with a homestead tax exemption proposal (still pending in the legislature) following Cumberland’s revaluation, were hit this winter with a Cumberland school board proposal to close the island school. The twin pincers of these mainland political forces has focused the community mind like never before to research carefully the economics of running their own island town.
One of the most obvious questions for Chebeague is what has happened on Long Island just across the way since it became an independent town. A few years after secession, when Long Island had paid off the largest part of its debt to Portland, Long Island’s taxes actually began decreasing and have remained stable for the past several years. Since independence, Long Island has been able to invest in an emergency boat and train personnel to “med-evac” emergency patients off the island. The town has also built a solid waste transfer station and (with lots of additional private fundraising) has just completed an astonishing new school and town library building that also functions as a community center. On top of everything else, the year-round population has increased to around 200.
The Long Island Town budget is stable at approximately $1 million. In comparison, Chebeague pays approximately $2 million in taxes to the Town of Cumberland and SAD 51. Long has talked about re-assessing properties soon, but isn’t as concerned with the potential impacts because it has control over its budget and mil rate.
Cumberland’s Town Council recognizes that with property valuations dropping to 50 percent, Chebeague’s fears of another revaluation – soon – are well grounded. Every time a town-wide property revaluation happens in the hot coastal real estate market, the fabric of life in a traditional community like Chebeague gets worn a little thinner. Longtime residents and elderly citizens inevitably confront the brutal economics of whether they can afford to stay in their homes after their taxes double or triple – and most cannot. Lobstermen who still own a shore privilege must recalculate whether they can afford their waterfront or will they be forced to “remove” inland. If Chebeague remains part of Cumberland, the handwriting for a majority of the island’s current residents is on the wall.
Meanwhile, across the bay, the secession debate also continues to rage on Peaks Island. But the politics are completely different there, not only because Portland will fight desperately for Peaks’s tax base, but many more Peaks Islanders depend on Portland than Chebeague islanders depend on Cumberland. We have attended numerous secession meetings on both islands (and also on Islesboro where county secession is a cat of a different stripe), always taking care to emphasize that we do not pretend to know the “solution” to any island’s current dilemmas. We are a clearinghouse for information, a connector between one island and another and with island friends on the mainland or elsewhere. But it does seem that if the right of self-determination is something we fight for on the international stage, it is worth fighting for back home.
Philip Conkling is president of the Island Institute. Dana Leath, Institute community development officer, contributed to this column.