Somewhere

Up against the blue curtains!

How's it feel to be the man?

The odd man out in this motley crew is Alan Caron, founder of the anti-sprawl GrowSmart Maine and now director of Envision Maine, which bills itself as a non-partisan think tank interested in informing public policy makers. I’m sure Caron has moderated his political views since I first knew him as a prison reform activist in the 1970s, but unless he has changed his spots completely, he seems to be the token progressive on Team LePage.

A 2007 trip down memory lane from the Boston Phoenix. As Ben Folds sings, "first you wanted revolution, now you're the institution".

In one uendo and out the other

The verbal tricks of politics and the media run from shameless character assasination to titillation and back, sometimes a combination of the two. "Does candidate x blow goats? It would be irresponsible not to speculate" is a famous (in the lefty blogosphere, anyway) parody of the style Richard Hofstader famously labeled paranoid.

So we have an honored Solon of Freeport politics, one Ed Bonney, writing this:

"In every election a candidate can expect to lose some signs due to weather or vandalism, but this year the apparent [sic] organized effort to remove and destroy candidate signs is the worst I have ever seen."

Note the "apparent[ly] organized" bit. Dark forces. Not the candidates, mind, and surely not his candidates, but an apparently organized cadre of evil minions slashing and burning. Subverting the political process. Who are they? Do they blow goats? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

This blog started with a report of the disappearance of signs belonging to a candidate Mr. Bonney does not support. Others he's not inclined to bless with his imprimatur have also lost signs. Is there a town-wide cadre of anti political sign zealots lurking in the mud of Freeport waiting to deprive its citizens of vital signage during a political campaign? Magic eight ball sez unlikely.

It's a damned shame when the election campaign in a town of 8500 winds up with paranoid McCarthyite tactics deployed by partisans, especially experienced activists like Ed. I guess paranoia makes for strange bedfellows.

Laugh about it, Shout about it

The Chamber Candidate's Forum is back on broadcast. Huzzah!

For Free

Buddy can you spare a quarter mil

I just looked up jerks in the dictionary. There was a picture of this law firm there.

Let me describe a few of the photos. In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.” My source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

Joe Nocera let NY Times readers in on the fun. HT Digby.

Unbroadcast News

Gee, who deep sixed the Chamber of Commerce candidate's forum on Freeport Public Cable? Unbroadcast at the scheduled times Thursday and Friday per the schedule provided by Rick Simard.You can find a list of cable board people and their contact info in this pdf. They are, according to the document:

Michael Reis, Chair
Edward Bonney
William Greene
Michael Ashby
STAFF PERSON: Rick Simard
rs@freeportmaine.com

Maybe they'll add a couple of replays to make up for the ones we missed.

Updated -
See the missing 11/5 airing? Cable 3 must be fully booked with notices about the dangers of lead paint and pancake breakfasts.

Dynamic Sideways Growth

From the Portland Press Herald, September 7, 2011:

Freeport retail is moving and shaking
Olympia Sports will relocate to a plaza that has been mostly vacant, and other openings are in the works...
Olympia's existing Freeport store -- in the Shaw's Shopping Plaza at 200 Lower Main St., near Exit 20 of Interstate 295 -- will close before the new store opens, said Olympia President Richard Coffey of Windham....

"Olympia is going to bring a lot of energy to the area north of L.L. Bean," [Freeport Economic Development Corporation executive director Sande] Updegraph said. "It will be a strong anchor for that complex."
emphasis added.

And another vacant space and energy suck for Shaw's Plaza. Woo hoo!

οἰκονομία oikonomia economics

The taxpayer funded unelected and self-appointed private Freeport Economic Development Corporation held a meeting (called a "hearing" by its president in her closing remarks) last night inviting the public to inform its betters as to what should be included in its "Vision 2025" strategic plan. Freeport's Very Smart People and Captains of Industry, whose "about us" page  references the residential part of the economy in only one of twenty one bullet points, thanked us for our input and assured us that they would be passing no ordinances. Great to know that an unelected body is not so empowered. We were all relieved to hear it. Still, Our Very Smart People put up hundred dollar signs all over town in pursuit of the 350 votes needed to attain the elected offices with the power to continue to siphon off tax money to pay for their business plans and pass actual ordinances.

A resident asked for my take on FEDC's Vision 2025 and contract zoning, an issue that has its own bullet point on the aforementioned page. Here's my response.

I believe that for far too long planning decisions that involve the spending of public resources of every kind have been proposed and fine tuned well before the public has had an opportunity to review and provide insight regarding their consequences. Part of the mechanism for that is the presence of FEDC, founded in 1980 by Mike Healy (now Seacoast United's spokesman and past president) and Ed Bonney to:
"advance and promote economic development in Freeport , Maine."

Some background:
The Articles of Incorporation are here
Their latest IRS filing that is available (2009) is here

I've shared them using Google Docs.

Here is the category Guidestar has them listed as:

Basic Org Information

NTEE Category:

S Community Improvement, Capacity Building 

S41 (Promotion of Business (Chambers of Commerce)) 

Year Founded:

2000 

Ruling Year:

2000 

As a private corporation, they are not covered under the Freedom of Access laws. Whether that status would hold up under a court challenge is a matter of some question. I am not a lawyer.

In any event, what they do is serve as a point of first contact for developers seeking to do business in Freeport. Sheltered from FOA, they can serve developers as a convenient and confidential liaison between the business and Town government, identifying properties, coaching on possible financing options as well as on logistical considerations a business might need to successfully move a project to approval by various Town boards. In itself, this function is not an unreasonable one in my opinion. It is troubling, though, that this function, while wholly publicly funded, is wholly privately controlled by a self appointed board whose members concurrently serve in important roles on publicly appointed or elected bodies which ultimately determine the fate of the projects they promote and shepherd through the permitting and approval process in town. It seems to me an invitation to disaster to lodge in a private corporation the power to shape the economic development of a town when properly public participation in any project can and will help to sharpen public understanding, consensus, and perhaps acceptance of major undertakings that require the use of public funds and/or resources.

With regard to the issue and meeting at hand, "Vision 2025", rather than challenging FEDC's legitimacy outright, I think focusing like a laser on what the project is and who it is for is the right approach. I think it is proper to ask the organization to clarify these issues for the public before the public provides input. After all, it doesn't make much sense for residents to provide an organization devoted to expanding business into primarily residential areas a road map for doing so. My questions would be these, in this order:

Who is FEDC?

How does FEDC understand the phrase "economic development"?

By what authority does FEDC convene this conference?

Who will produce the work product?

Who will approve the final product?

Who will be the consumers of the work product?

Who will pay for the work product?

Is it FEDC's intent that all or part the work document produced through this process become adopted as the Comprehensive Plan for the Town of Freeport?

Who will lobby for the implementation of its recommendations by the Town Council or other relevant town bodies?

I think it is important to get really solid answers to these questions before contributing to the project: especially the fundamental question as to whose project it is. If it is to be a project directed and edited by the board of FEDC,
I want to know if their vision encompasses something more than a vision of a town devoted to growth for growth's sake, or something more sustainable. I want to know if issues like public transportation  figure into their calculus as resourses for people as well as businesses. I want to know whether the protection of quiet open space undisturbed by commercial enterprise is a part of their vision of Freeport's economy. And I want to be assured that if the taxpayers are paying for this project, they have full and complete access to developing it at every step in its evolution.

As to contract zoning, here is a great summary provided by Orlando Delogu, a U Maine Law professor emeritus at a conference earlier this year.  Contract zoning is a tool that can be effective in fine tuning land use. Like any tool, it can be misapplied in the wrong hands, without proper public oversight. I am very much afraid that given the unwillingness of the public in Freeport to be protective of its rights until the last minute, the tool will be used unwisely by partisans of one shiny toy project or another until zoning becomes meaningless. There's lots of speculation about expanding commercial uses in the residential zones. There are no active projects I know of, but if somebody comes up with a shiny new toy that promises "growth"and "jobs", it is a tool that could be used to facilitate such a project, if its planning is done in the same fashion as other projects have been recently. That much advance planning and coaching of projects takes place with the cooperation of FEDC without public scrutiny or control, depending on the private corporation to make the right choice in recommending a contract zone for a particular project seems worrisome. Currently, contact zoning in Freeport is not permitted outside the commercial zones. I don't think it should be until we have a development process that is open and transparent to public view and participation. I don't think we have that now, but we should work hard to see that we do in the future. That's a worthy goal for Freeport 2025.

Last Kid Picked?

I guess that's how this candidate's supporter felt while placing his or her favorite's sign.

Really? Rich DeGrandpre has such awesomely cool superpowers that merely placing his sign in the right of way makes the two candidates' signs that were there before fly off into a ditch?

Again, I can't believe the candidates themselves are inspiring this expression of town juvenalia. Whoever is out there vandalizing signs, just stop.

Blocking up the scenery breaking my mind...

Look, I know people put a whole lot of energy into putting up campaign signs, and are naturally peeved when they mysteriously disappear. Anyone who'd spend their time ripping up signs because they don't like the candidate probably enjoyed ripping the wings off of flies in second grade. But to float rumors of lawsuits and bruit about accusations that the candidates themselves are engaging in such a pastime is really, really dumb. I know none of the folks I'm supporting are doing that.

Again, if anybody actually knows anything real about actual humans vandalizing signs, please let the authorities know.

It's been windy. The ground is damp. The weather doesn't favor anybody in particular. Leave it to the cops, and fuggedaboudit.

Signs of the Times

It seems some campaign signs are flying off Flying Point Road. If anybody knows why, please share the info.