Send in the clowns

So the Chamber of Commerce's return to the public on the investment of $36k in tax money is supposed to be a public clown show. I can't wait.

He's shocked. Shocked!

to find that public business must be conducted publicly.

A few weeks ago the Town received a request from a citizen and member of this distribution list for a copy of all of the email addresses used in a particular email.  Upon receiving the request the Council sought a legal opinion as to whether the release of email addresses was required under the FOAA or whether the addresses were protected as personal information.  The legal opinion stated that the FOAA did not protect the address distribution list and that if requested the Town was obligated to release any address information used to convey information related to Town business.  The Council subsequently sought a second opinion which confirmed the original finding.

<snip>

I can not help being disappointed with the legal requirements related to this matter.  Many of you have asked to be included on the distribution list with an understanding that your personal information will remain private and I wish that I could have honored that request.  I have found these email distributions to be an excellent forum for getting information out to the public and for receiving public feedback and sincerely hope that each of you will choose to remain on the distribution list.  That being said I can not prevent this type of request from happening in the future so if any of you feel that remaining on the list is not in your best interest please let me know and I will remove you from the distribution list. 

-Jim Cassida, Freeport Town Council Chairman

FOAA is Maine's Freedom of Access Act that requires public business be conducted publicly. I would like to like Jim personally, but I also think he does misunderstand the obligations he took on when he ran for and accepted his post as a Councilor. He mistakes the role he has assumed as one he controls and entirely inhabits, not one constrained by law, both written and common. Rather than acknowledging that in transacting public business people should be aware that they should be held accountable for their words, he suggests to his readership that they may secure themselves from direct contact by using the good offices of Facebook. This may be fine for a political campaign, but in governing, it stills open discussion and leads to bitter divisiveness.

In my opinion, people should be encouraged to be involved in their government openly, without fear or shame, except such that they might bring upon themselves.

It really makes me sad that apparently Jim would rather bemoan the minimum legal requirements of openness in governance than enthusiastically comply with them, and provide some leadership by example.

You don't know what you've got til it's gone.

Earlier today while casting about for information on the town property where Seacoast United seeks to build its supermarket sized indoor soccer palace in an area not zoned for it, I came across this little tidbit (Word 2010 doc, PDF here) relating to the administration of the land abutting its proposed fiefdom: Hedgehog Mountain. The document is entitled "Hedgehog Hill Mountain Area Trails Maintenence and Management Plan". It was presented to the Conservation Commission at its November 15th meeting. It bears no date, and its authorship is unacknowledged, so its recommendations' source is impossible to determine. Commission members say it was presented by the Town planner, who has a vision apparently not entirely at all in accord with the Conservation Commission, whose remit by ordinance it is to act as custodian of this property on behalf of the town. Here is their plan, as adopted in 2004 (Word 2003 doc, PDF here). The former document would presumably replace the current one in force as the guiding plan for Hedgehog in the future. Some excerpts:

"The acquisition of the Hunter Rd property and the development of the athletic fields in 2011 creates a new opportunity to expand the existing trails to include this new property.  A small group of residents and trail enthusiast[s] that are very familiar with the property have developed a plan to maintain and upgrade some trails and to build new trails. 

So a "small group's" privately developed plan trumps that of the body charged by ordinance with developing such a plan with public input. For property acquired by the town through public bond issues for the expressed purpose of quiet enjoyment of open spaces by its users. Right. The small group's not through yet.

"The trails are currently managed and maintain by the volunteers of the Conservation Commission.The Conservation Commission is also responsible for managing and maintaining all of the other trails and woods owned by the Town.  Given the size and number of trails on this property, it is recommended that the responsibility of the land and trails on these properties not be that of the Conservation Commission.  This would require an amendment to the Conservation Commission Ordinance.

Instead a new committee such as the “Friends of Hedgehog Mountain Area” (FOHMA) be formed.[sic]  This group should be part of or at least very closely associated with any group that is formed to oversee the management and maintenance of the athletic fields on Hunter Road. The responsibilities and budget for that group are recommended to be the following:" [snip]

Read the whole thing to see what a new committee (presumably made up of the aforementioned "small group") has in mind.

This unsigned presentation on behalf of unidentified and non-public actors staging a power grab against a duly appointed Town commission established by ordinance is disturbing, to say the least. It seems some in town disagree with the Conservation Commission's understanding of the trust it is charged with. Fine. Let them present their views to the Commission for its consideration. It's rather unseemly to suggest that the right way forward if the Commission disagrees with one special group's outlook is to remove from the Commission's charge the care of the lands it was created to preserve for all of the Town's residents, regardless of that group's self-declared familiarity with the property. What's next? "Friends of Florida Lake"? "Pals of Wolfe Neck"? "Supporters of Sandy Beach"?  We need a Town Government that balances interests and builds consensus. Not one that throws out processes and ordinances because they don't accomodate the shiniest new toy on display.

Rumor has it this may be on the Council's December 6th agenda. If you can find a moment to speak out in favor of quiet enjoyment of our public spaces, come on down and tell the Council to let the Conservation Commission conserve our public lands.

Oz

Following on the last post, the rest of Freeport's business community's contribution to town revenues, if we accept FEDC's 30 percent figure, is $647,299, or 6.7% of the total. Town spending on promotion of that sector through contributions to FEDC, the Chamber of Commerce, and Freeport USA, which are all private corporations, was $115,000, or a little less than an 18% return on that investment tax rebate. Now that's smart business, for those on the inside. Whether it's smart for the rest of the taxpayers is another question.

The results are in.

Always true to you, darlin' in my fashion.

Kate Arno apparently doesn't know what she's the President of. Here's a clue. It is a private corporation whose core constituency is business interests with no membership and a self selected board of directors. It is not a "Commission". Freudian slip, perhaps.


Freeport Economic Development CORPORATION.  Says so here too.

Tell us how you really feel.

Maybe this is why people feel a wee bit put off by our town government. This at a Town Council meeting October 12, 2010.Taped and broadcast that night by the Town. The reaction? Make the microphone's default position off. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Watch it...

If Marie Gunning is a plant, she is a rose among the thorniest bunch of characters this side of Mr. MacGregor's briar patch. It's not easy giving your opinion when you know an ad hominem sidebar at the dais awaits if it's one contrary to some town official's.

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".

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.

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.

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.