The New Boothbay Region Housing Trust Seeks To Reclaim Maine's History As A Colony Of Massachusettes!
Plus a special bonus! Introducing the ADNFO!
An important reminder that The Boothbay Harbor Selectmen elections are on Friday
In Boothbay Harbor, Ken Rayle, a former member of the former JECD group and current member of the broadband committee is running unopposed for a three-year term so it looks like the JECD Party has their man in for the next three years, replacing the current JECD Group member, Wendy Wolf who is stepping down.
The candidates for the one-year position are Alyssa Allen and Devyn Campbell. Both grew up in the region and have strong local connections. Devyn Cambell is my choice as I wrote about in my last post,
The two incumbents won the Boothbay election results. This was also when we voted on the budget. There were two items in the budget that said further details are found in the Town office. As I was voting I thought, what a hassle! I considered that if I were to walk over to the desk within the voting area and ask to see documents that are outside of the voting area, would it lend the appearance that I had finished voting and I would lose my spot? Then what would happen to my vote? Would such an irregularity give cause to claim voter fraud? In reflection, I thought I had missed an opportunity. I should have asked to see the documentation just to find out what happens if one does.
There was one item on the budget called a “capitalization fund”. I had no idea what the intended use of a “capitalization” fund is and so I voted against it. I noticed that there was no mention of the broadband fund on the ballot and so I wondered if it would be slipped in under the rubric of a capitalization fund.
There was also an option to fund the JECD, even though the JECD announced it was disbanding when coronavirus hit. There was no option to give thanks to essential workers who stood by their posts, and still are, during this pandemic.
I, of course, voted against subsidizing the JECD. The then spokesperson for the JECD, Wendy Wolf, made it clear to me when I tried to present my proposal for a museum, that one must be among the wealthiest organizations on the Peninsula to engage with that tax-payer funded power group.
Today in the Register, there is a story about the BRHT- which stands for the Boothbay Region Housing Trust, a non-profit recently formed by realtor and developer activists. The new 501(3)(C) is now official enough to be identified with an acronym composed of its initials but not yet official enough to have a website where one can learn significant information about it, such as - does the BRHT have a for-profit investment subsidiary?
I searched the Boothbay Region Housing Trust on the corporate name search on the Secretary of State website, where I learned that its paperwork was filed on March 3, 2021. Its reserved name was filed on February 20 of this year by Deborah Yale, a Portland-based realtor with extensions into wealthy Southern Maine rural areas, including the Boothbay Peninsula. Her Facebook Page says “The Swan Agency is an International real estate company located in Maine. I specialize in Historical properties, Condo's and seasonal homes. “. Now she specializes in “workforce housing”.
I decided to look up the Swan Agency on the Maine corporate name search. Its legal name is “TRUMPETER, INC “, evoking all too obvious associations, and its other names are SWAN AGENCY REAL ESTATE and THE SWAN AGENCY SOTHEBY'S INTERNATIONAL REALTY.
Suddenly without explanation, the article in the Boothbay Register about the BRLT starts talking about IHTMV Executive Director Philippe Jordi. What is IHTMV- It is the Housing Trust on Marthas Vineyard which shares the same cover photo as the article in the Register of affordable housing units built wall to wall with no individual plots of land. It is very nicely landscaped, which is surely maintained by central management. “Living” in this paradigm does not include any small piece of land where “the workforce” can create their own landscaping or growing environment, as is a standard for a “quality” rural lifestyle.
It seems that BRLT wants to preserve the region’s history, dating back to the time when Maine was a colony of Massachusetts!
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691 by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The charter took effect on May 14, 1692 and included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Plymouth Colony, the Province of Maine, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the direct successor. Maine has been a separate state since 1820, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are now Canadian provinces, having been part of the colony only until 1697.Wikipedia Province of Massachusetts Bay
Joseph Carpenter, writing for the Boothbay Register links to the Massachusetts Community Investment Tax Credit Program (CITC) Legislation that appears to be the guiding light for the BRHT to bring about a true return to historical central management, when Maine was owned and governed by Massachusetts and/or the monarchs of Great Briton.
I am almost ready to submit my own paperwork to VLA in Boston. Massachusettes, since there is no VLA in Maine so that I get legal help in creating a non-profit serving an alternate paradigm for economic development on this peninsula. It looks like once one does that, all one needs is an acronym to make it official. and get a media write-up.
Fortunately, I have already invented a new acronym. It is not directly applicable to the museum as it is specific to the private entity, Andersen Design, which is related to the Museum. The new acronyms I have coined are the NFO and the ADNFO.
NFO is derived from the cryptocurrency term NFT- which means nonfungible (digital) tokens and is very big news today. NFO means nonfungible objects. ADNFOs are recorded in an airtable database, which I have been maintaining for several years, and documents NFOs that Andersen Design produced from 1952-2017 when we lost our business in a home and with that our capacity to continue to produce ADNFOs. The V number above (V-381) represents a record in the air table and each record are pictures, taken by myself, and so it gives pause to wonder if the pictures were recorded in blockchain, as NFTs, would that that make the NFTs more valuable than the NFOs, merely because NFTs exist in cyberspace and NFOs merely exist in the natural world?
Recently-as in a couple of weeks- ADNFOs are surging in the secondary market. The dollar value is not impressive since our company was founded on a philosophy of creating a handmade product affordable to the middle class, but the percentage of price increase over the original prices and the rate of acceleration is impressive. This has occurred quite suddenly. One day I was noticing an increase in asking prices and wondering if the askers would be able to get those prices and the next day at least half a dozen pieces were selling at those prices. The average selling price was three times our price point and went as high as ten times our price point when we were still producing ADNFOs.
I am working on a much more comprehensive story about all of that. I have not yet decided where to publish it. One possibility is in a paid subscription to this newsletter because that will be a truly limited audience and sometimes there are reasons to publish something only to a limited audience. I have not actually republished the posts in this newsletter to any other venue, but it is an option to do so, but a paid newsletter would go only to paid subscribers.
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That said, I am initiating the option to support, with a paid subscription, the research I have been doing for free since 2009, which includes reading Maine statutes and historical documents, providing a comprehensive insight into the whole network of legislative acts, which is usually displayed only in parts. The mainstream media, when reporting on legislation usually delivers a public relations piece on an individual bill without putting it into the context of the whole interconnected system of legislation. I do that. I am NOT a non-profit organization so no one owns me so.
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Mackenzie