A Door to Community Involvement Opens. Who Will Walk Through It?
A Door to Community Involvement Opens. Who Will Walk Through It?
Information within on the Legislative Planning Session For the Boothbay School Charter.
I woke up this morning to no new income. So, I keep on writing, although I know that publishing every day is not the way to build my subscriber base, I am doing so now because I need to build a new income base. Today two large bills are due. One is covered and I need to generate a minimum of $350.00 which I hope will happen today.
I never have been good at fundraising, perhaps because I have never put in a committed effort before, which means doing what I am doing right now as I have heard it done on fundraisers for large organizations. The fundraisers just keep talking until the fundraiser reaches its goal. Another comparison is a legislative filibuster. It’s the hustle.
There is a “Donate Now” Button on my Profile on The Field. Those donations are tax deductible.
Mackenzie Andersen is a sponsored artist with The Performance Zone Inc (dba The Field), a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization serving the performing arts community. Contributions to The Field earmarked for Mackenzie Andersen are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. For more information about The Field, or for our national charities registration, contact: The Field, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 906 New York, NY 10038, phone: 212-691-6969. A copy of our latest financial report may be obtained from The Field or from the Office of Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271
I am a fiscally sponsored individual, not an organization. I would like to create an organization. That is what the mission of Andersen Design is about which is posted as the Andersen Design Profile on the Andersen Design Website.
Andersen Design has always been an outsider in this community, while the art was also embraced and collected by many locals, both year-round and summer residents. The outsider status is due to the fact that my parents moved to this peninsula and started something different that hadn’t been here before. That is what I attribute to my outsider status when I attended local school on the peninsula. In school I observed all the social circles but was outside of them and I developed an idea of myself that I was invisible. I could walk around anywhere and nobody would notice I was there, in my own mind, only. One day at an art opening in New York City, as I was observing a circle of hot shot artists’ girlfriends, I noticed that they were all looking at me! What is this? Have they penetrated the invisible layer of reality? I quickly moved on.
I took this idea so far that my favorite poem in high school was Emily Dickenson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are you?”
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us—don't tell!
They'd banish—you know!
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog! source (analysis of Dickenson’s writing ion this site is very well done)
How is that for youthful ambition? I didn’t have it. I had an internal mission. I didn’t speak of it in earlier years. This is the first time I have ever said out loud that I carried it wherever I went throughout my life. When I read Martin Buber’s Between Man and Man, he brought the reason I felt this into finely tuned clarity. But even so, I spent a lot of time in New York City, that wonderful town that attracts outsiders from around the world. What makes New York City great is its inclusivity. Now you might imagine that our local cabal imagines itself the next Manhattan Island but it is anything but inclusive.
Instead of a Manhattan Island wannabe I think that an off the beaten track peninsula is better suited to the garden cities written about and imagined by Lewis Mumford and luminaries of the Arts and Crafts movement. Instead of going back to the Industrial Revolution to build overcrowded housing concentration zones for the working classes, we should look further back and become a new center of the cottage industry movement. The idea that we should build a massive overcrowded housing development and a massive new corporate headquarters for the State educational-industrial training system as the Thwaites Glacier sits on the brink of collapsing into the ocean and no one really knows what it means in rising sea levels is incredibly shortsighted. Perhaps these developments are located on high enough ground not to be directly affected but what about the various infrastructure systems? We occasionally hear something from Senator King or some other leader that hints that they are thinking about the possible damages that might occur but no politician wants to alarm the public lest it interfere with economic development.
We don’t know what the Thwaites Glacier effect will be. Still life must go on but why build such massive developments on a peninsula as we sit and wait? Wouldn’t such development be better suited to inland locations as they would be resources that can be helpful in the case of an environmental disaster?
No one wants to be an alarmist, on the other hand when a potential threat is known, there is time to make preparations and to incorporate the potentialities into planning- but Paul Coulombe, the leader of the pack, is not that kind of a forward-looking thinker. Clifford Park, funded by Mr., Coulombe and a federal land and water protection grant sits over laden with asphalt on top of a hill next to Adam’s Pond, the peninsula’s primary water supply, and along the side of a road where many Land Trust parks are located with parking areas that do not use asphalt. Those advocating for the corporate subsidiary peninsula show little respect for historical precedence.
Incidentally, some may think the price for our vintage work is high. I priced them when I was dealing with 1stDibs, who accepted Andersen Design but wanted us to design a new high-end line. 1stDibs was put off when I asked them to sign a non-disclosure agreement, before presenting design concepts, as I have done without an issue with smaller companies. It was clear from that that 1stDibs attitude is that they make all the rules and the vendors just take them or leave them- so I left them. That informs some of my philosophy about designing a working real-world platform for the slip-casting network of independently owned studios- it will be interactive and negotiable terms between both sides. a novel idea in this day and age.
You can see on 1stDibs that my prices are in line with the market.
I didn’t go with the large dominant platform in our industry. I believe one can be successful as a niche market platform. In example, I was debating with someone about why this newsletter has a Domain Authority rating of 91, which is the same as Wikipedia. I know that if you look up what Domain Authority means you will likely find an explanation that goes into the algorithm and backlinks. The algorithm has never done me any favor and I have considerably fewer backlinks than Wikipedia or the Maine Monitor, which has a Domain Authority rating of 53 on HREFS.
So why does my newsletter have a Domain Authority of 91? Could it be because Domain Authority means exactly what its name says? Because I cover history that Wikipedia has refused to allow, such as that the centrally managed economy of Maine that was instituted under Governor Longley in 1976, and that Andersen Design was part of the midcentury design movement, therefore anyone searching for those subjects will not find it in Wikipedia and I will be at the top of search inquiries in those areas. Therefore, I have 91 Domain Authority in subjects that I write about.
I believe the same principle can be transferred to an Andersen Design designer-craftsmen portal because it will be done differently than other platforms serving a unique market.
But back to the affairs of the school charter. It is covered in the Boothbay Register like so
Bryer reported May 9 was a busy day for local education. Community School District and municipal officials testified before a legislative committee regarding repealing and replacing the school charter. source
Thank You Mr. Bryer for not even mentioning that I was also there to testify.
I added the information in the comments section of the Boothbay Register, including the whole of my short testimony.
It was Mr. Bryer who, when I responded to an ad for volunteers for the code administration committee on the Town Website, told me that the committee did not exist. The state ten-year planning commission that will be guiding municipal ordinances requires that participants be two partnering non-profits, excluding the free enterprise sector, which by definition is that sector not subsidized by the state.
However, I received this information today:
This could be Big!
If we could mobilize as a community!
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2023 9:37 AM
To: Chapman, Cheryl; Stover, Holly; Truluck, Merrill
Cc: EDU
Subject: [EDU] LD 1786 (EDU) - Work Session Scheduled
A work session for your bill LD 1786 "An Act to Repeal and Replace the Charter of the Boothbay-Boothbay Harbor Community School District" has been scheduled for Monday, May 22 2023 10:00AM.
To sign up to testify at a Public Hearing and/or submit written testimony, please visit https://www.mainelegislature.org/testimony/ or contact the Committee Clerk.
That doesn’t say if one must attend in person or will it be a zoom meeting but I have learned by now to clarify that in advance and I will report back tomorrow.
It seems that to submit new testimony one must use the date May 9 at 1pm because this is a work session.
I am going to submit new testimony about what I think should be in the Charter.
The two most important points to win are that
The Maine Constitution will be taught in our public school system
Prohibiting conditional gifts in the funding of our public schools. All funding should be done through the Foundation which is for tax deductible giving. Foundation giving allows the donor to earmark their gift for a project, which is different because it is out in the open and not negotiated behind closed doors.
As I am writing this post, I received an email. The Penguin Publishing job opportunity is back plus a couple of other interesting opportunities so I have to run to get that in before it disappears again.
I will be writing more about what should be in the school charter tomorrow. Discussion welcome! The inhabitants of the community have a right to be part of this discussion! Let’s do it! Who's in?
