A History of Incremental Transformation of the Maine Government
To understand where we are headed, we have to understand how we got here.
Welcome! I'm Mackenzie Andersen and this is my reader supported newsletter. I am narrating the very local story of culture war taking place on the Boothbay Peninsula in Maine, centering around such issues as the ownership class -working class divide and constitutional home rule versus the centralized economy. I have been independently studying the Maine statutes and the Maine Constitution and other historical documents, concentrating on the years since 1969, since 2007. I weave this long view into the contemporary political Peyton Place that is the Boothbay Peninsula today. It’s a local story but every local story has universality in our globalized world, sometimes change sometimes has to happen at the roots and in fact, it already is! You can subscribe by clicking on this handy little button:
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I’m reading a newsletter, published by Paved, my sponsorship platform, about monetizing newsletters. Having read a lot of advice columns, this one scores as intelligent and informative comprehensive analysis. I am also pleased to say that I can check all the right boxes.
Does this newsletter have a specific audience? =YES
Do you have something unique to share with that audience? =YES
Can that audience get similar types of content elsewhere? =NO
If your answers to those questions are “yes,” “yes,” and “no,” you have a pretty unique newsletter, and you may be able to monetize sooner rather than later, even if your audience has just a few hundred readers. source
There are a lot of links to click and so I started with Should you sell newsletter sponsorships?
Sponsorship are different than paid advertising which the article demonstrates by having parts of the story continue on other platforms. That is a smart . Sponsorships collaborate on content. I would be interested in sponsorship if the right opportunity knocks on my door but in the meantime conventional advertising seems more viable.
My favorite sponsorship would be a company, that to my knowledge does not yet exist, that is a company designing housing for worker in resident’s zones. One reason those companies do not yet exist is because zoning does not exist for working at home. Home businesses are missing from the economic development and housing conversation and clearly a class being discriminated against since even though the government includes housing as part of its economic development, the government does not recognize businesses in a home which also combine housing and economic development but exist outside the hierarchy of the corporate-controlled system.
Erin Cooperider said about “workforce housing” (meaning corporate employees) That “It's also important to understand that unlike traditional affordable housing, there are no specific programs targeted to workforce housing, which makes it hard to build."
I add that
“It's also important to understand that unlike traditional affordable housing, there are no specific programs or zoning ordinances targeted to worker in residence housing, which makes it hard to build and for such a cultural alternative to exist"
I am interrupted by Opportunity knocking on my door. The influencer marketing director of a new news platform called Ground News invites me to apply for the affiliate program. I applied and am accepted. The platform seems just the right fit. I started blogging because I saw only one point of view represented in Maine media. Ground News features the diversity of news writing on the same news topic across the entire globe and from opposite sides of the political spectrum. It identifies the owners of the news source and even has a section called blind spot that shows what stories are being exclusively covered by the left or right of the political spectrum. Can such a new way of consuming the news stimulate new perspectives and a new trend toward listening to many points of view in a world where many say partisan groups are secluding themselves from the rest of the community of man?
Ground News is a website and app that gathers all the world’s media in one place so the user can compare coverage and see how breaking news is being covered across the political spectrum. It lets you see the story behind the story using data-driven analysis that looks at things like the political bias, reliability and ownership of news outlets.
Being an affiliate partner of Ground News, means that if someone purchases a subscription to Ground News through my affiliate link, they are also financially supporting this newsletter
I see great use for such an app in many of the subjects I cover such as the short-term rental driven housing shortage, a global phenomenon.
I went swimming at Ocean Point today where I engaged in a casual conversation with a woman from the South. She said that where she lives some people got the idea that all single-family homes should be banned. That idea was stopped but it reflects the deteriorating living standard that is held up as a solution to the residential housing shortages that short-term rentals have brought about. Real solutions have to acknowledge the cause and sooner rather than later as the short-term rental business is expanding aggressively beyond single-family homes into former residential apartment buildings in Boothbay Harbor and rapidly transforming the fabric of society as part of its process. Developer Paul Coulombe owns numerous short-term rentals and is now developing a “self-service hotel”, while the cultural war between the Airbnb barons who want Boothbay Harbor to be one unified Airbnb campus, and the East Side Waterfront Park has moved into the court.
Coulombe also funded land for The Boothbay Regional Development Corporation, a nonprofit corporate-owned concentrated housing zone. The local selectmen, who oversee the distribution of American Rescue Plan fund, permit the BRDC to operate under such secrecy that the terms of Paul Coulombe’s funding is anyone’s guess while the identity of the other funders remains unknown, but they are, potentially, the new owners of the concentrated housing zones, who will function as the zone’s private government. It is unknown if the BRDC has a for-profit subsidiary, but it is verifiable through 990 filings that the largest affordable housing developer in the region, Coastal Enterprises Inc, has been forming affordable housing developments as for-profit subsidiaries since around 2004, funded by non-profit funding using Model L fiscal sponsorship.
While many in the nonprofit sector are framing fiscal sponsorship as intended exclusively as interim solution for organizations seeking 501 3C status, Model L fiscal sponsorship belies that story as it is a permanent relationship incorporated by non-profits that already have 501 3C status.
The Maine government has enacted an additional means by which non-profits can raise funds before acquiring 501 3C status. That status is listed as T13 B, standing for Title 13 B of the Maine statutes, or the Maine Non-Profit Corporation Act
The Maine Non-Profit Corporation Act was created in 1977, a year after the Maine Legislature deemed that centrally managing the economy is an essential government function. Since Article IV Part Third Section 14 of the Maine Constitution prohibits the Maine Legislature from chartering corporations, with only two exceptions, and a non-profit corporation is not an enumerated exception, something had to be done, so in 1977 a statute was passed that made exceptions to the definition of “corporation”, paving the way for the corporate state, which is arguably that which Article IV Pat Third Sections 13 & 14 of the Maine Constitution is intended to prevent.
Maine Constitution: Article IV Part Third
Section 14. Corporations, formed under general laws. Corporations shall be formed under general laws, and shall not be created by special Acts of the Legislature, except for municipal purposes, and in cases where the objects of the corporation cannot otherwise be attained; and, however formed, they shall forever be subject to the general laws of the State.
When is a Corporation Not a Corporation?
THE RULES FOR NONPROFIT CORPORATIONS begins with a list of what is to be excluded from the definition of a corporation for the purposes of the Maine government:
1 Definitions
A Corporation. Title 13-B Section 102(4) defines the term "Corporation" as used in the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act. Certain entities are excluded from the definition. Among the exclusions are "an instrumentality, agency, political subdivision or body politic and corporate of the State." The Secretary of State interprets that phrase to mean an administrative unit or corporate outgrowth of State, county or local government created by statute, order, resolution, ordinance or articles of incorporation to perform functions traditionally associated with government activities. By way of example, entities, which will be considered excluded from the definition of corporation, include, but are not limited to:….[1]
[1] The quote presented here is as it was when I originally encountered the Act. When I went back to it on 9/20/2016, it was changed to 4. Corporation. "Corporation" or "domestic corporation" means a nonprofit corporation subject to this Act, including a nonprofit hospital and medical organization subject to Title 24, chapter 19. It shall not include: A. A foreign corporation; [1977, c. 592, §12 (NEW).] B. A corporation subject to the laws regulating banking and insurance companies; or [1977, c. 592, §12 (NEW).] C. An instrumentality, agency, political subdivision or body politic and corporate of the State. [1977, c. 592, §12 (NEW).] [ 1977, c. 592, §12 (RPR) .] “
By the year 2016, the explanation about the Secretary of State’s interpretation was gone. There was no notation reflecting that the text of the statute had been edited. The exclusion of corporations serving as instrumentalities of the state from the definition of a corporation is arguably unconstitutional pursuant to Article IV Part Third Sections 13 & 14 of the Maine Constitution. Section 14 which states that all corporations, however formed, are subject to general laws, which should exclude exceptions to definitions within general laws.
The information above was preserved in the book that I published in 2015, titled Public Private relationships and the New Owners of Production. I was once offering it for sale on Amazon where it was lost in the crowd. I decided I wanted to rewrite parts of it and took it off Amazon and have yet to rewrite it but I use my book as my reference resource because it is chronologically organized and easy to locate what I am looking for- as opposed to going through hundreds of blog posts.
These days in the content provider industry, publishing a book is an asset so I took put this book back on the market, on the Andersen Design website. I would still like to rewrite parts of it and also bring the story of Maine’s incremental transformation from a home rule state to a hegemony up to date. My book is the only resource that I know about that provides insight into this incremental history, besides The Maine Constitution, A reference manual by Marshal J Tinkle, which was once listed as the officially sanctioned book on the Maine Constitution on the Maine Legislative website, but as I went to find it today, I found that in 2018 the Maine Legislature published its own book on the Maine Constitution that credits “the Maine Legislature” as the author. That should make an interesting comparison. There is also this 2018 book on the Maine Constitution whose author is credited as “The State of Maine”.
Curiously the publication of books by the State of Maine and the Maine Legislature was not publicized pursuant to a Google news search on the subject. Considering that the Maine Legislature has assigned itself authority over the curriculum in the Maine public school system and chooses not to include education on the Maine Constitution anywhere in that system, one must ponder why would the Maine Legislature publish a book on the Maine Constitution and not publicize it at all?
The most obvious answer is so that the book may take precedence on sites like Amazon over other books as some might see a book authored by the State or the Maine Legislature as more authoritative than books by other authors, missing the fact that the Maine Legislature is governed in tis actions by the Maine Constitution. and so qualifies more than any other authorship as a party with a special interest in how the Maine Constitution is interpreted. The authorship of these versions remains anonymous on first site. When I download them, I will know if there are individually identified authors within the text. Stay tuned.
You can purchase the first edition of my book HERE.
The Legislature takes an oath to uphold the Constitution which contains principles that govern the formation of general laws. That is the binding agreement between the people and their representatives that confers upon the representatives the authority to enact legislation.
When I published my book it was possible to access the Rules for NonProfit Corporations at http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/rules/29/chaps29.htm but today Chapter 29 is missing, However, you can request it from the Maine Legislative Library, if you are aware that it exists.
If the Rules for Non-profit Corporations had been constitutionally challenged in 1977 would the court have upheld it?
Despite the fact that the Legislature is defining some corporations as not corporations, the language used to convey what is cannot find a way to articulate the concept without using the language of incorporation. Despite the clear need for Maine's new government by public private relationships to get around the Maine Constitution, the new government still needed to use definitions legally recognized in national and international law if it aspired to be a world class player.
Obviously, the attorney general's words were written because everyone involved was aware of Article IV Part Third sections 14 of the Maine Constitution that prohibits the Legislature from chartering corporations by special act of legislation and by so doing places a limit on the size and functions of state government. Were it not for such an awareness, there would be no purpose in writing such a statute.
But it was not questioned that the Legislature has the authority to charter any corporation by special act of legislation that it deems to be an essential government function and so by the year 2022 the Maine Legislature’s authority to charter corporations by special act of legislation seemed to have been established by statutory precedence and the Maine Legislature chartered the Maine Space Corporation without bothering to declare the Maine Space Corporation as “an essential government function”,
Because- that might raise the question- Is chartering a Maine Space Corporation a constitutional government function? Is a space corporation competing with space corporations existing in the private sector a “corporate outgrowth of State, county or local government created by statute, order, resolution, ordinance or articles of incorporation to perform functions traditionally associated with government activities” ?
To my citizen point of view, the role that the state government and its private partners has usurped is frightening, totalitarian, dystopian and UnAmerican. Since LD 2003 HP1489 transferred constitutional home rule authority from local authorities to the state, the State has declared that the state wide “community character” of every Maine municipality will include housing concentration zones for the permanent residents and workforces and is arranging for large developers to replace the community character of the traditional New England village with a centrally controlled corporate grid, and the traditional New England village will be historically preserved as short-term rental theme park.
*Full disclosure- the following and everything I say about the law, is my lawman’s interpretation of the law.
Since concentrated housing zones are mandated in every municipality by statutory law, such corporations, before they have acquired 501 3C status, which enables them to collect tax deductible donations, can bypass fiscal sponsorship and instead use Chapter 223: MUNICIPAL FINANCES Subchapter 1: GENERAL PROVISIONS §5655 Conditional gifts
This statute allows the donor to negotiate any terms they want, including secrecy, and for the municipality to honor those terms in perpetuity.
Build an alternate system!
Think of the corporate state as just another development corporation in the economic landscape, except that it is more powerful than all the others because it also writes the rules of the economic system and does so to the advantage of itself and its private partners.
But still, it is only one player in the system, and not the whole system. The State of Maine does not write federal laws or the rules for the entirety of the non-profit sector and it does not write the Maine Constitution without the consent of the governed.
My plan for a Museum of Designer Craftsmen as fiscal sponsor of designer craftsmen can be setup to fiscally sponsor the creation of studios and other work spaces is an alternative to funding through government subsidies That just means that the sponsored project can seek funding through non-profit channels. It doesn’t mean it is easy and it doesn’t address the cost of construction, but free enterprise entrepreneurs are a creative class that figures things out.
Typically, the nonprofit corporations that partner with Maine State Inc use model L fiscal sponsorship to fund their for-profit subsidiaries. Once funds raised by non-profit means are transferred to the for-profit subsidiary, they become nontransparent to the public as they are no longer governed by the rules of the nonprofit or public sector.
However, the project of a fiscal sponsor does not have to be a corporation, it can be an individual, in example, I am fiscally sponsored by The Field . That means I can potentially raise debt free funding that is not government-subsidized.
So, to quote, the late, great John Lennon, “Imagine” it!
Create an alternate future from the roots upward and outward! Take a chance! While you are imagining the future consider the path, we are headed on now. Is this a desirable future? If it isn’t start imagining that there are other paths and possibilities. We have a choice. We are creating the future now. Think outside the current paradigm. Create new paradigms.
Your title intrigued me, but after a tome of text, I skipped to the end. To win over new users/subscribers, you should split your pitch into three basic interactive sections - history, theory, practice (practice could be your call to action for new paradigms).
Too much text will kill your efforts. Add some graphic, images, video etc.
You lost me after text scrolling ad infinitum.