Just three months after Chebeague Island won its independence in the State Legislature, Peaks Island will decide if it wants to pursue secession.
On June 13 Peaks will vote on seceding from the City of Portland. As on Chebeague, Peaks Island secession proponents believe that going it alone is the only way Peaks can preserve its year-round community.
Although state law only requires one vote on secession, proponents have promised that there will be a second vote. If the first vote is in favor, agreements are reached with Portland, and the Legislature approves Peaks’s secession, another vote would be held. Opponents have said there is no provision in state law for this second vote and are urging islanders to vote no.
“We are doing this to preserve our community,” said Michael Richards, moderator of the Peaks Island Independence Committee. “Islands like Peaks are an endangered species. They will become summer colonies unless we actively manage the changes that are inevitable to any community.” Islanders need self-government to cope with these changes, Richards said.
Secession opponents, organized as the Solutions, Not Secession Committee, say it makes no sense to leave Portland and the city’s tremendous resources for a risky future as an independent town. “I think that islanders really have no complaints about the way the city has treated Peaks Island, at least in the last 10 to 15 years,” said Gene Taylor, a member of the anti-secession committee. “The risk is that no one can predict what is going to happen,” if an island town government is formed, Taylor said.
Richards said islanders can make better decisions about services on Peaks, and can control spending and taxes better than city government officials. Peaks Island is such a small part of Portland that voters cannot have an impact on the overall city budget. “The island is a unique political entity with unique needs, and without self-government, we are not able to apply our resources to our needs,” Richards said. “It is important for islanders for once in their lives to have the chance to vote on their future.”
The independence committee planned to present a budget for a Town of Peaks Island at May 20 at the Peaks Island Lions Club. The group also plans to staff a weekend information booth in the island’s central business district, Down Front, through Election Day.
Opponents plan to distribute buttons printed with the slogan, “Solutions, Not Secession.” They criticize the independence committee for not providing enough details about an independent Peaks Island. They say that Peaks receives many more services from Portland than other Maine islands. “I think that tearing apart a well-integrated service and infrastructure complex with the city is contrary to the regionalization concept which is embraced by most forward-looking legislators and administrators as a way to cut taxes in the state of Maine,” said Taylor.
In addition to running the island school, library and community center, the city provides 24-hour police and fire protection, rescue services and a public works crew and trash pick-up (although there is an island volunteer fire department). The Portland Water District also operates a sewage treatment plant on Peaks and provides city water. Last year the city provided $620,000 in subsidies for Peaks Island water and sewer fees. There is also a nonprofit children’s center that has received city funds in the past.
Of the 15 year-round island communities in Maine, Peaks is unusual in that it is part of the state’s largest city and just a 15-minute ferry ride to the mainland. As a result, it is more connected to the mainland that other, more remote islands. A majority of the island’s 850 year-round residents commute to the mainland for work.
With Chebeague becoming its own town on July 1, 2007, Portland will become the last mainland community in the state that governs year-round islands. The relationship between the city government and its islands has been up-and-down over the past 20 years.
The first secession movement was triggered by a 1991 Portland property revaluation. The Portland islands of Cushing, Great and Little Diamond, Long and Peaks all sought independence. Long Island was the only one to succeed, becoming independent on July 1, 1993. A Peaks Island group tried for four years to leave Portland, but a legislative committee finally defeated that attempt in 1995.
The latest secession movement was sparked by the first major Portland property revaluation since 1991. In April 2005 new property values were mailed out and islanders were outraged. Values increased 151 percent on Cliff Island and 207 percent on Peaks, on average. The increase in property values was so high that the property taxes of many islanders doubled and tripled, even though a revaluation is not supposed to increase taxes.
In May 2005 the Island Independence Committee was formed, which created over nine working groups to study different aspects of island self-governance. The committee, or its sub-groups, has held public meeting almost weekly since then. In January of this year, the independence committee submitted a petition, certified by the City Clerk, with 595 signatures, asking for a hearing on secession (a minimum of 550 signatures were required).
In February, a moderated forum called Peaks Island Today & Tomorrow was held to talk about the island’s future. That event led to the formation of a third group dedicated to finding solutions to the island’s problems. Members have said the secession debate is polarizing the island. Instead, the group said the island should focus on identifying and solving the problems Peaks Island faces. The group has not taken a stand on secession. “However the vote goes, we think that problem-solving is the key,” said group member Brenda Buchanan.
After the official March 25 city hearing on secession, Portland City Manager Joe Gray presented Portland’s response to islanders’ concerns. It included the creation of a separate Island Council; an interactive Internet broadcast of council meetings at the island school; assisting island residents to change zoning rules to encourage affordable housing; an assurance that the island school won’t be closed; and a City Council Finance Committee proposal to add 25 percent to property tax refunds granted through the state’s circuit breaker program.