Given the attention rightly focused on the historical significance of our 44th President taking office this week, it might be easy to take our eye off the ball of history we have to make right here at home.
Next week the potential member towns of the Central Lincoln County School System will go to the polls to decide whether to adopt the Alternative Organizational Structure as recommended by their local school board representatives and the 20-member Regional Planning Committee.
Of course, voters are free to make up their own minds, but we are constantly reminded the state is threatening those who exercise their right to disagree with a financial club.
To date, voter turnout on these referenda, such as the one for the RSU that gave away school facilities in Wiscasset and elsewhere last week, has been pitifully small, considering the significance of such decisions.
Look at it this way: Schools are the lifeblood of small rural communities, which is to say most of Maine and certainly all of Lincoln County. The decisions we are being forced to make today will impact our children for generations to come, presumably until the next chief executive comes along and rams his vision for savings down the throats of the taxpaying public without allowing a popular vote on the issue.
While we support the concept of consolidation where it will in fact improve operations and produce savings, we remain staunchly opposed to this consolidation plan presented this way.
The fact that a referendum vote was not called on this issue, and instead implemented through legislative manipulation is an insult to us, the taxpaying public, and an eternal disgrace for our elected state officials.
This tacit denial of our basic right of self-determination should be carved on the gravestone to the everlasting shame of each and every legislator who meekly rolled over and allowed the chief executive to have his way while there was still breath in their body.
That said, while we obviously recommend repealing this mess when we get our first and only chance to vote on it next November, this vote next week isn’t that vote next fall.
All next week’s polling does is validate, or not, the work our local elected officials have been forced to do while we mark time until November.
Rejecting the AOS proposal may feel good, but it won’t do a thing to affect the consolidation law and, if anything, it will leave our local communities open to state retribution.
