Keep up the fight
Our town leaders, all of them - selectmen, school committee members, state representatives and senators, superintendent of schools - are doing their jobs for us this week in battling the forces of detachment and deflection otherwise known as Augusta. They deserve and need our support for the work they are doing, and we ought to give our clearest voice possible in that regard.
As discussed in detail in our page one article "School debate hits the floor," officials and representatives from York are working to lessen the punitive impact of the opt-out provisions of the state's school redistricting proposal currently under debate in Augusta. Although the proposal continues to be a work in progress, nothing in it to date can be viewed as beneficial to York and other similarly situated "donor" communities.
While this comes as no surprise in and of itself, the clearly punitive opt-out provisions being piled on top cross the line of fairness in every definition of the word. This state is a fiscal mess not because the citizens of York and Ogunquit fail to pay their share. We pay every penny of our share and quite a bit of other towns' as well. Been to the wonderful high school facilities at Noble and Marshwood? Well, you paid for them. Been to the not-so-wonderful schools and facilities in York? Well, you paid for them also, but only with what you had leftover after paying for every other town.
And "leftover," we think, is pretty much the right word here. As in, we are one of the towns whose needs and concerns are the "leftovers" in just about everything that comes down from those running things in Augusta. Now, after having subjected towns like York to years of a bullying and abusive tax system, the state wants to ram down our throats a redistricting plan that has no appreciable benefits for us, and which will almost certainly increase our local costs while further decreasing our local control. And if we fail to roll over and submit, guess what? We pay a penalty. Again.
We say enough. Our present system of taxation is by design punitive to York and similar towns. This current redistricting plan only makes matters worse. This has nothing to do with York's view toward neighboring towns. It has to do with the realities and costs of forcing mergers on communities that do not need them or want them. We ought to be able to opt out, and do so in a fair and reasonable manner.
Fair and reasonable. These are real words. You can look them up in a dictionary. Even in Augusta. For now, from down here in York (if you look on the map you will see that it is allegedly a town in Maine), we say to our town leaders: keep up the fight.
