Who Says Making Should Be Prohibited In Residential Areas?
The Rules of the Industrial Revolution that moved making from the home to the factory no longer apply.
I have been busy working on an application for the John Templeton Foundation. that grants a foundational level of support.
Now that I am fiscally sponsored, I have discovered a foundation that I can apply for without being fiscally sponsored. I wish I had previously known that it is possible for the John Templeton Foundation to award grants to free enterprises but our universe unfolds information to the observer only when the time is the right time. Now, you are at the right time. Imagine if the plethora of economic development services ever revealed this, but perhaps, they do not know? Do the people in power really have special expertise? If one believes so one might be led astray. You have to learn these things on your own. “The program” is designed within limited parameters. Walk outside the lines.
The application is due August 19 and is actually a pre-application. If one is accepted then one goes on to the next level.
The questions create a structure that unfolds as a complete story. Each section, except the project description, must be said in 1300 characters or less. The project description is limited to 4000 characters. The result makes for a better project description for The Field, so I replaced what I originally wrote when I applied for a fiscal sponsorship grant with the story that was created by answering the questions for the John Templeton Foundation. There are still more questions to be answered but they are not relevant to the project description posted on The Field.
I spotlighted municipal ordinances as a challenging obstacle to developing a network of studio workshops. If municipal ordinances are written in such a way that prohibits the existence and growth of businesses in a home, then businesses in a home are excluded from that municipality. Stand-alone studios can also be included but small intimate spaces are more conducive to individualistic work and provide a better work-life balance, which is a primary reason for the call for remote working among the workforce.
For years, it has been the case in Boothbay that the Town officials have been creating prohibitive ordinances against even the simplest home businesses such as an artist wanting to conduct a class for four students to be denied a permit to do so by the Boothbay board. This attitude is coming from the elected selectmen and officials appointed by the selectmen. The candidates for office are usually announced in the local paper one week before the elections which gives little time to get to know who the candidates are and favors incumbents, or anyone who is well known to the voting public. It also means that the election process receives minimal public attention which serves to maintain the status quo.
In another case, the Town Board closed down Stimson’s boatbuilding. The first published story does not identify the complaining neighbor who is identified in the Boothbay Register article published a week later, as John Kelley who refers to Stimpson as a “noxious user” whom Kelley says was no problem as long as Kelley assumed that Stimson was an employee of the shipyard. We are told very little about Mr. Kelley as is usually the case when someone publicly complains about their neighbor.
In 2010 Kelley started noticing a difference at the worksite when Stimson stationed the schooner Bagheera there to be refurbished. The large boat and workforce Stimson brought in for help on the project raised no suspicion to Kelley at the time, who was under the impression that Stimson was unemployed from Boothbay Harbor Shipyard.
….“I didn’t know whether he lost his job, or he departed on his own terms,” Kelley said. “But he needed employment.” Kelley added that it was the first boat he had ever noticed Stimson work on. source
A curious comment by someone who is intent on closing down another’s self-employment, Kelley sees Stimson as someone who “needs employment”. Does it indicate that Kelley is someone who identifies with not needing employment? We do not know as we are given no information about Mr.Kelley.
Ryan Leighton, the author of the article also published an article titled History of Stimson’s Boatyard a day earlier in the Boothbay Register, clarifying that Stimson was employed at times by shipyards on the Cape and in Boothbay Harbor in managerial positions. Stimson’s former employer Boothbay Harbor Shipyard president, Eric Graves commented that “Like most craftsman during a recession, it’s a norm in Maine for boatbuilders to seek part-time work elsewhere.” source
The article tells of non-specific complaints about noxious odors and noise. There is no description of the proximity of the Stimson boatbuilding process to the neighbors so it is hard to judge the validity of the complaints, factoring in the social atmosphere in the region that was once an easy-going community but has seen an increase in recent times of intolerant busybodies aggressively vocal about any activity that they do approve. At one point Mr. Kelley asks “would you want Boothbay Harbor Shipyard to move in next door to you tomorrow?”, bringing to mind that I grew up in East Boothbay with two shipyards just a short walk down the hill, including Washburn and Doughty, specializing in steel and aluminum commercial vessel construction. I wondered how the location of Mr. Kelley’s home to Stimson’s small shipyard compared in proximity to the two shipyards in the center of East Boothbay village, but that information is not to be found. I was never bothered by noise or noxious fumes and never thought of the shipyards as noxious.
In contemporary economic development speak, the term “workforces” represents a class that either serves the needs of residents or a class that works at corporate headquarters. It’s an upstairs-downstairs hierarchical order, with its own brand of cultural neurosis.
Grassroots entrepreneurs throw a spanner in the works. They work for themselves. possessing the qualities of ownership that corporate culture seeks to emulate as psychological ownership, except ownership isn’t psychological in the grassroots entrepreneurial community, it’s real with the most important ownership being ownership of one’s self. The culture clash can be likened to a crack in the dikes of a metaverse allowing the real world to enter.
What’s that??!!
Cultural attitudes can be heard loud and clear between the lines of the newspaper article.
Ten years ago Jim Chaousis was the Boothbay Town Manager. He wields authority when he voices his opinion but there is no appeal to a standard rule or measure. The complaint is clear- Stimson’s business has grown. According to Chaousis, Stimson used to make row boats. “It’s been years since he’s done anything significant over there,” he said referring to Stimson’s previous site located across the street. “It’s a totally different business and that business developed on the Cape, it developed at Boothbay Shipyard. It didn’t develop on this property.” source
Mr. Chaousis said so but there is no reason to conclude that Mr. Chaousis is knowledgeable about significant work done by Stimson or how Stimson developed his business. From my perspective, I know that Mr. Chaousis would not have inside knowledge of Andersen Design’s wholesale business and I would not be the least surprised to find out if he or anyone else believed that our entire business was selling out of our local retail storefront, but our long time neighbor since childhood, Mike Cook, once expressed how having such an experience taking place next door opened him up to another world. The comment about Stimson’s business developing in the Cape or a local shipyard might just reflect a bias toward small entrepreneurs and a stubborn unwillingness to give small entrepreneurs credit for their accomplishments, noting that Mr. Kelley also assumed that Stimson was a shipyard employee and did not know that Mr. Stimson was an active independent shipbuilder at the time Mr. Kelley purchased his property.
Like Andersen Design, Stimson Boatbuilding was a family business in a home as described in this undated article in Maine Boats that prominently features Stimson Boat Yard.
For 40 years, Stimson has specialized in the restoration and repair of classic boats, as well as the design and construction of small wooden craft—skiffs, rowing boats, catboats, a war canoe, a motorized dory, schooners, and some nifty, lug-rigged 15-foot daysailers that he built for Pine Island Camp and calls Bezumarangs, inspired by Bezuma, one of the summer camp’s “sacred animals.” He also builds and repairs violins. source
Mr. Stimpson is a professional designer-craftsman, and like any professional, the way of doing business often has flexible terms, sometimes traveling to a location, sometimes working from home base.
David Stimson grew up on Cape Cod, where he began working in boatyards in 1969 at the age of 15. A neighbor, Merton Long, taught him many tricks of the trade and showed him how to design and build boats in the traditional manner from a carved half model.
Stimson worked in various boatyards on the Cape until 1977, when his brother and he started their own business, Stimson Brothers Boatworks. He brought the business with him when he moved to Boothbay in 1981, and began building and repairing boats in his parent's barn on River Road. History of Stimson Marine
The Town leaders who write the ordinances seem to not believe that small businesses grow as a natural process as if they start at one size and stay that way forever, by design. The same ideas are to be found in low-income and affordable housing, designed to remain permanently at that status so that increasing one’s income requires moving out. Conversely, our selectmen have allowed a large business to expand into our watershed and another to manipulate spending millions of taxpayer dollars on constructing traffic obstructions in the middle of the main thruway, creating a permanent annoyance, day in, day out, every day dealing with traffic congestion where there once was none.
The effect on the neighbors is not the primary explanation for town official’s attitudes toward businesses in a home as I learned the day I went to the Town Office to pick up a DBA form and was accosted by the Town clerk in an attempt to get my signature on a legal document of an unrelated nature and bring the signed documents to the next selectmen's meeting. I was told that any activity done for pecuniary gain in the privacy of one’s own home had to be approved by the selectmen. I asked to see the code. Thus I learned that such an ordinance existed and the words said: “Any activity for pecuniary gain in the home- even if it does not affect the neighbors.”, leaving one to draw one’s own conclusions about the motivations behind the persistent antagonism toward grassroots entreprenuers in this town, not applicable to the dining, entertainment, accommodations, and retail industry- or Airbnbs.
But absolutely applicable to the making community.
Stimson hired attorney Michael Kaplan who pointed out contradictions in the zoning code:
Section 1.8.3 which stated “the Town should encourage retention expansion and creation of small-scale commercial and industrial enterprise that provide year-round employment by local people by ... (b) permitting commercial and industrial uses in residential areas where the proposed use would meet the performance standards of this Ordinance for the particular location.”
Kaplan indicated that Section 1.8.3.3 noted “the Town should promote retention of traditional marine-related activities” that included boat building by “allowing marine related activities throughout the community subject to reasonable regulations to minimize adverse impacts on neighboring properties.” (emphasis by author)
The town’s definition of manufacturing in Section 6 of the ordinance was also brought into question, which defines manufacturing as “the making of goods and articles by hand or machinery, including assembly fabrication, finishing, packaging and processing.”
Kaplan said the description was an “overly broad and vague definition that would prohibit a knitting circle in somebody’s living room.” source
Six months later Stimson was allowed to reopen but was limited to repairing boats, and denied permission to continue work on the 50-foot steel schooner Stimson was building for a customer to sail the Arctic Sea. According to an article in Fisherman’s Voice, one of the complaining neighbors is identified as Mike Tomacelli, then described as a new member of the planning board, and currently, a member of the Town Selectmen- whose seat is up for re-election within the next year.
The other neighbor, John Kelley, claims that Stimson Boatbuilding did not exist when he bought his land in 2002, but in another article, Stimson claims he had been building boats on his property since 1981 and was unaware that the act of manufacturing boats was illegal in the residential district when he applied for a building permit in 2011.
In 2015 Boothbay was called the boat building town by the Island Institute, celebrated for its industry diversity, but Stimson’s is not listed. Even if Boothbay is heralded as a boat-building town by a significant source, It can never erase what it did to Stimson’s boat builders, especially within the boat-building community.
Washburn & Doughty is featured in the 2015 Island Institute article but seven years later, with Airbnb being one business in a home that has been allowed to expand without regulations, Washburn & Doughty is talking about acquiring property to use as a boarding house for skilled shipyard workers since it is becoming impossible for shipyards and other businesses in town to find employees because housing for local residents is in such short supply.
If we can consider returning to the feudalistic system wherein employers and landlords are one and the same, can we also consider returning to the pre-Industrial Revolution culture of the cottage industries- or businesses in or attached to the home? First, we must recognize businesses in a home as having status in public affordable housing and economic development discussions, in considering the use of our Village Common, and in those brief writeups that appear about candidates for selectmen one week before the election.
In more recent news Steve Lewis of the Boothbay Selectmen is doing battle with the Antiques Fair that has been taking place on the Boothbay Common for many years. In a controversy ignited by Lester Spear’s Winter Faire that took place for the first time last year on the Boothbay Common during the Gardens Festival of Lights. Local residents expressed Christmas spirit worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge, led by new arrivistes, the Thibodeaus, who conducted a letter-writing campaign to the Boothbay Register and sent a personal hate letter to the Spears, that I saw with my own eyes. The detractors were outraged by a two-dollar fee that Spear was charging to offset the costs he had invested. The detractors claimed that because Spear was charging a two-dollar fee he was making a profit, an unsupported assumption for anyone familiar with running a business, but expressed with such outrage that one might wonder if making a profit has been criminalized on the Boothbay Peninsula, or at least criminalized for a select class, that of grassroots entrepreneurs.
During the public forum, residents had a mixed reaction on potential policy changes impacting Boothbay Winter Festival. Gail McPhee supported a more restrictive approach to common rentals. McPhee told selectmen she didn’t think the common was a good site for the festival. She specifically didn’t like the lighted “Eat Here” and restroom signs. “I’m a resident. I live here. This is (our) common,” she said. source
Apparently, McPhee did not take in that the Spears and vendors and many who were employed by the Winter Festival also live here.
Spear argued before the board that since the Antique Fair had charged an eight-dollar fee, a precedent was set.
Town selectman Steve Lewis seems to have decided Gail McPhee was right, in response to an article written by John DeSimone about the 62nd Boothbay Region Antiques Show, it was reported that terms were changed by the Town mid-stream causing concern for the antique show. “DeSimone stated show managers were given permission by the town in January, but later told in May, the new rental policy prohibited admission fees”. source
It was just a statement of fact but Steve Lewis didn’t like it, saying he believed DeSimone’s comments were out of line considering he didn’t live in the Boothbay Region, implying that residency was a requirement for having a voice. Lewis believes the Common should benefit Boothbay residents, exclusively, a controversial statement considering that the Town selectmen had reduced sixty-four priorities in the $79000.00 plan paid for with local public money to three priorities, one being regionalism. What is Boothbay’s regional attitude? Economic isolationism? Other local residents may feel that the Antiques Fair benefits them. We don’t have a kingship, should we put it to a vote?
DiSimone explained why the fair is asking for donations instead of charging a fee, identifying the Community Center, which serves local residents, as a beneficiary of the donations.
After all the outrage over the profit Lester Spear allegedly made by charging a two-dollar fee, Lewis mocked the idea that the contribution to the Community Center was significant by saying “it made it sound like the Community Center would lose out on a major donation” If the donation is insignificant, then why is charging an entry fee important enough for the selectmen to be making rules against it? Does Lewis also believe that only those making major donations should have a voice in what goes on in this community? Lewis portrays DiSimone as “bad-mouthing” the Town by simply stating what went down, why the fee was changed to a donation, and letting the community know the beneficiary of the donation. If merely stating the facts is bad-mouthing, then what went down was bad.
The article goes on to describe the Antiques Fair as violating the rules by parking on the Common:
Earlier this month, Town Manager Dan Bryer addressed the antique show violating the no parking on Common condition for renters. Bryer reported vendors are allowed to briefly park on the grass while unloading. Bryer offered the antique show parking cones to assist in keeping cars off the Common.
A few days later I drove by the Common during the Farmer’s Market to see vehicles parked all over the Common, as has long been the case during events on the Common be it the Farmer’s Market or the Antiques Fair, both attracting vendors from out of town. I drove by the next week to see the Farmers Market again with its trucks parked all over the Common. No one bothers the Farmer’s Market about parking their vehicles on the Common- that is part and parcel of how they do business, and that should also be true for other users of the Common unless the eventual plan is to ban the use of the Common to the grassroots entrepreneurial community.
If it can be said that DiSimone “bad-mouthed” the Town by simply stating the facts, then it is fair to say that the selectmen threatened the Antiques Fair with the following comment:
Under the new policy, the town manager, not selectmen, schedules Common space rental for events lasting less than three days. Board Chairman Chuck Cunningham reminded selectmen next year Bryer would decide whether the antique show can use the Common. “Dan will make that decision, and he knows our concerns,” he said.
What are the concerns? That DiSimone spoke matter-of-factly in our local newspaper? That vendors travel and sell out of their vehicles and that this practice has been taking place for decades?
It only recently came to be that maintaining the visual appearance of the Common takes priority over its long historical function as a marketplace open to traveling vendors from outside our own residential community, as it should be to the benefit of both the local community and the larger region. The Boothbay Region used TIF financing to pay for the new turning lanes and road decor, including a tree planted in the middle of the road. That means part of the cost was shifted to the county. Is our regional attitude all take and no give? You can pay for our infrastructure transformation but you can’t use our Common?
Why the sudden change in rules about parking on the Common? Is it to protect the irrigation system funded by Paul Coulombe, creating an effect that makes the Common blend into the Country Club?
Coulombe was the main contributor, but not the only one to the turf project. Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens provided four new trees at an estimated $6,220 cost. In January 2019, the Landscaping Committee presented details for the $43,905 turf project. Irrigation was the single largest project cost, at an estimated $22,000. As the turf project neared completion this spring, Coulombe proposed refurbishing the aging gazebo. source
Mr. Coulombe makes major contributions!
A case in point for what it means for one faction to have no voice in the public dialogue. If one is considering putting an expensive irrigation system in a public space that has traditionally been used by traveling vendors who sell their wares from vehicles that are traditionally parked in the space where they sell, and the historical use is given no consideration while rules are subsequently imposed banning vehicles (at least for selected events) from parking in the space in order to protect the irrigation system and the new branding of the Boothbay Region as a wealth culture, where the lawn is always green, even during a drought, what does that say about how politics is done in the Boothbay Region? With money and deceptive manipulation?
Grassroots entrepreneurialism nurtures the character traits that encourage innovation that corporate culture seeks to realize through the illusion of psychological ownership. A small peninsula should pay attention to that hidden nugget of truth. Walk outside the paradigm.
The video is super excellent. And so is this article.