Opinion on the Maine referendum questions on the November 2024 General Election, Part One
QUESTION 1: An Act to Limit Contributions to Political Action Committees That Make Independent Expenditures, Do you want to set a $5,000 limit for giving to political action committees that spend mone
November 2024 General Election ballot order of referendum questions
QUESTION 1: An Act to Limit Contributions to Political Action Committees That Make Independent Expenditures, Do you want to set a $5,000 limit for giving to political action committees that spend money independently to support or defeat candidates for office?
The ballot question is poorly articulated. It should be explained on the ballot that under Maine law, a Political Action Committee includes action organized to influence municipal referendums.
Title 21-A: ELECTIONS
Chapter 13: CAMPAIGN REPORTS AND FINANCES
§1052. Definitions
As used in this subchapter, unless the context otherwise indicates, the following terms have the following meanings. [PL 1985, c. 161, §6 (NEW).]
1. Campaign. "Campaign" means any course of activities to influence the nomination or election of a candidate or to initiate or influence any of the following ballot measures:
......
F. Any county or municipal referendum. [PL 1995, c. 483, §17 (AMD).]
I am speaking as a resident of the Boothbay Peninsula where the secondary school system is still dealing with a leaky roof after years of political manipulations that have tied repairs to an expansion including new buildings. This referendum was placed on the ballot after an unregistered ballot question committee financed the referendum with two million dollars to pay architects to design a new school system.
The group did not register as a political action committee as required by Maine Law:
§1052-A. RegistrationA-1. A ballot question committee shall register with the commission within 7 days of receiving contributions or making expenditures in the aggregate in excess of $5,000. [PL 2021, c. 217, §4 (NEW).]
that organization makes expenditures exceeding $5,000 to influence a municipal referendum campaign in a town or city with a population of less than 15,000, that organization must register and file reports with the commission using the electronic filing system pursuant to section 1059, subsection 5,
The group was portrayed as anonymous as if modesty motivated anonymity in complete disregard of Maine law that requires the identification of contributions for a gift so large.
§1052-A. Registration section 6. Identification of contributions. An itemization of each contribution of more than $50 made to or received by the committee for the purpose of initiating or influencing a campaign, including the name, occupation, places of business and mailing address of each contributor and the amount and date of the contribution;
[PL 2021, c. 217, §11 (AMD).]
I submitted an FOAA request and obtained the minutes of the formative meeting and the identities of the investors.
On the list of investors, I found many names from outside the Boothbay Peninsula and outside of Maine:
This is the list of names that I identified as being outside of our community:
John and Jill Boulos of Boulos Asset Management in PortlandNick Aberding, Pine Street Trading Co in Yarmouth
Charles Bagley, IV, Estate Planning, Annapolis, Maryland
Gena Canning, Managing Partner Pine Street Trading CO, Gardiner Maine
Keith M. Canning, CEO & Founder at Sawyer Island Consulting, based in Portland,
Ken Colburn, Bar Harbor, Semi-Retired at Symbiotic Strategies LLC
Charles Colby, likely address, Skowhegan Maine
Fred and Caren Levin Siesta Isles, (Real Estate) Philadelphia area
SIMMS LCC Offices in Philadelphia, PA, and Quincy, MA
Lindy Snider, Likely address, Philadelphia area
John and Elizabeth Suczynski, likely address NYC area
Jeffrey Suyematsu, likely address New Hampshire
The contribution of two million dollars defined what the referendum question would be, which was to fold the cost of repairs into a plan to demolish our midcentury highschool building and replace it with a 21st-century corporate design, appropriate for the repurposing of our public educational system as industrial job training, embedded into Maine law under the Industrial Partnerships Act of 2013.
In the selling of the demolish and replace plan, we were repeatedly told of the “making spaces” that the new school would host, but we were only shown an image of a tall glass tower that exceeded the height limitations of our local ordinances and a very vulnerable lobby with many plateaus and open stairways, meant to portray a glamorous, corporate, innovative environment. No making spaces or classrooms were portrayed in the sales pitch.
Throughout this process, Maine laws were treated as inconsequential as investors from outside our community and state were able to place a referendum on our local ballot where the option for repairs only has yet to be found in a public referrendum..
There was much public discussion and resistance to the demolish replace and expand plan so the ballot question was broken into two parts, one for the high school and one for the middle and secondary school.
The cost of dealing with the repairs only for both systems was known in September before the first referendum.
According to the CSD documents from September, BRES and BRHS need over $32 million combined in priority repairs over the next five years to manage failing systems. The district showed estimates of around $6 million in repairs described as imminent failure, life safety or code issues at BRES; at BRHS, there are around $3 million. Trustees planned to complete these repairs within the first two years of a major renovation project. Items categorized as nearing their end of life were planned to be completed one to three years later. The district said those secondary repairs are estimated to cost roughly $6.5 million for BRES and over $16.5 million for BRHS. The costs were adjusted for 6% annual escalation since they were first estimated in 2021, and administrators said it will continue to increase the total regardless of the project. What if April’s referendum fails? 04/23/2024
Whitehead said the total construction cost to repair both buildings would be around $37.7 million over 20 years, around $16 million for the elementary-middle building and $21.7 million for the high school. Whitehead said this would be around $6.5 million a year for the first five years of repairs. CSD addresses cost of school renovation, repair 09/29/2023 -
The continual escalation in the cost is based on the rate of inflation which is currently 2.5% according to US inflation calcularor. That standard target is 2%.
The need for repairs was continually used to support the referendum that inseparably linked repairs to expansion and inflation was used to say that if we did not approve the referendum the costs of repairs would be higher in the next referendum.
The annual inflation rate for the United States was 2.5% for the 12 months ending August, compared to the previous rate increase of 2.9%, according to U.S. Labor Department data published on September 11, 2024. source US inflation calcularor.
The dire need for repairs of both systems was used to sell the expansion but since the November ballot, there has been no talk of repairing the high school.
Six months later there was a repeat referendum of the middle and secondary schools on the ballot, and still no ballot option to deal with the repairs for both schools separately
The April 2024 referendum was a repeat of the November 2023 referendum question for the middle and secondary schools and so qualifies as a Reconsideration vote required by Maine Law to be initiated by a public petition:
§1354. Reconsideration
The procedure to reconsider votes taken at a district referendum shall be as follows. [PL 1981, c. 693, §§ 5, 8 (NEW).]
1. Time limit. The board of directors shall, within 60 days, initiate a new district referendum to reconsider the vote of the previous referendum if, within 7 days of the first referendum, at least 10% of the number of voters voting for the gubernatorial candidates in the last gubernatorial election in the municipalities within the district petition to reconsider a prior district referendum vote.
2. Required quorum. A reconsideration referendum is not valid unless the number of persons voting in that referendum is at least equal to the number who voted in the prior district referendum.
[PL 1981, c. 693, §§ 5, 8 (NEW).] (empasis mine- If being the key condition)
There was no citizen’s petition initiating the reconsideration vote in April. The repairs and expansion plan was voted in with some saying the timing of the vote was a key factor, There were fewer people voting in April than in November, but the vote was not challenged for violating the law governing a reconsideration vote.
Instead, a group of local citizens organized a petition for a reconsideration of the April vote.
The CGS responded by rejecting the petition:
The Community School District (CSD) Board of Trustees on May 14 unanimously rejected a citizen’s petition contesting the April 24 referendum that approved renovating Boothbay Region Elementary School (BRES). In a special meeting, the board declared it will not initiate a new referendum because a legal petition was not received.
“It's not some dates missing or something like that,” said Chair Troy Lewis. “Little things with the petition aren't my biggest concern with it. The problem I have with it is in the law.”
That’s progress! Now the CDS has recognized for the first time that it is governed by the law. The problem is that the law governing reconsideration petitions does not give the CDS the option of rejecting the petition by adjudicating that it does not meet the requirements of the law. They can argue that in court but they cannot act as the court and throw the petition out. (my layman’s opinion)
So now the campaign finance funds are depleted, the bond is on hold and the funding for the repairs is inseparably linked to the funding of the court-challenged expansion of the schools and the roof of the secondary school building still leaks as winter approaches.
Did I say that the CDS elected to use §5654. Conditional gifts to fund the project so it can’t accept tax-deductible donations, as far as my layman’s understanding goes.
The root cause of a quagmire that prevents the repair of the roof of the secondary school from proceeding is that by persistently disregarding Maine law, a group of funders from outside our community and state were able to decide what the referendum question would be on our local ballot. Their kids do not attend the school with the leaky roof.
QUESTION 1 would limit the contributions to $5000, so that our referendums and Town officials can never be bought so easily again.
The two million dollar campaign contribution by an unregistered committee allowed money from outside our local community and state to place a referendum on our ballot. Don’t let this happen in your community!